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Class TX fr SI 
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Copyright N° 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Practical Observations 



upon the 



CHEMISTRY OF FOOD 



and 



DIETETICS 



BY 

J. B. S. KING, M.D. 

Prof. Chemistry Hering Medical College, former Prof. Chemistry Hahns 

mann Medical College, Secretary International Hahnemannian 

Association, member American Homoeopathic, Ophthal., 

Otolog. and Laryngolog. Society, member American 

Institute Homoeopathy, Etc., Etc. 



THE BLAKELY PRINTING CO, 
1 906 



U8RARY of CONGRESS 
Two CoDies Received 

JUL 18 1906 

'CoDyftgni E/itry 
ASS 0(\, XXc. Mo. 

/ 5 IGG4- 

COPY B. 




rx 



ICs 



Copyright, 1906 

By 

J. B. S. KING, M. D. 



DEDICATED TO THE 
MEMORY 

OF 

DR. CLARENCE WILLARD BUTLER 

of Montclair, N. J. 

Gentleman : Physician Scholar 



INDEX. 

Absorbability of food 17 

Albuminoids 11 

Amount of food, daily 21 

Acetone 137 

Acid eructations 99 

Age, old 85 

Alcohol 64 

Aneurism 138 

Anaemia 96 

Artificial feeding of infants 72 

Barley 43. 49 

Beans 52 

Bread 46 

Buckwheat 50 

Butter 29, 69 

Butterine 69 

Buttermilk 33 

Baking powder 134 

Brain workers 90 

Bread and milk 94 

Bright's disease 115 

Cabbage 54 

Carbon metabolism 20 

Carrots 55 

Casein 28 

Catharsis, inadequacy of 21 

Cerebrin in egg-yolk 36 

Chittenden's experiments 23 

Coarse breads 19 

Condensed milk 33 

Consumption 129 

Cereals 43 

Cucumbers 55 

5 



6 INDEX. 

Cocoa 62 

Coffee 62 

Colds, freedom from 59 

Cancer of stomach 105 

Diabetes, milk in 112 

Diabetes 106 

Dilatation of stomach 106 

Eggs 35 

Elements of human body 9 

Elimination 19 

Extractives 11 

Fish 40 

Fletcher's discovery. Mr. Horace 23, 26 

Flour 44 

Functions of food 12 

Food for special conditions 71 

Fruits 56 

Fruitarians 57 

Fruits, ash of 59 

Foods, fermentable 103 

Foods, unfermcntable 103 

Gastric ulcer 104 

Gelatinoids 11 

Gout 118 

Grapes 60 

Heart diseases 122 

Hunger, uses of 138 

Hyperchlorhydria 100 

Hypochlorhydria 101 

Infants, food for 71 

Indian corn 49 

Iron foods 99 

Lactation 81, 99 

Lactalbumin 29 

Lecithin in egg-yolks 36 

Lentils 52 

Leanness 125 



INDEX. 7 

Malt liquors 68 

Mineral matter in the body 10 

Mineral matter of milk 30 

Meat 2>7 

Meals and flours 44 

M r ! ] k 28, 73, 75 

Milk, condensed 33 

Milk-sugar 30 

Milk, citric acid in 31 

Milk, effect of boiling on 32 

Milk cure, the 34 

Muscular work 92, 120, 138 

Nomenclature 135 

Notes 135 

Nitrogenous metabolism 20 

Nuts 61 

Nursing women 81, 98 

Normal salt solution 137 

Oats 50, 95, 112 

Obesity 123 

Oysters 41 

Onions 56 

Old age 85, 87 

Principles of nutrition, general 9 

Peas 52, 99 

Potatoes 53, 99 

Proprietary foods y^ 

Protein 11 

Rice 51 

Rye 51 

Salt-rising bread 48 

Sedentary habits 90 

Special foods, chemistry of 28 

.Spinach 55 

Spirits 68 

Standard for measuring food values 14 

Stomach troubles 99 

Spices 132 



8 INDEX. 

Scurvy 137 

Sulphur 137 

Tea 62 

Tomatoes 55 

Tissue clogging 86 

Turnips 54 

Typhoid fever 125 

Uric acid 119 



INTRODUCTION. 

There has probably never been a time when the 
attention of the public has been more generally di- 
rected toward the care of the health than the 
present. Every newspaper in the land seems to 
have a column or a corner devoted to the develop- 
ment of the body, to the care of the skin, to the 
obliteration of wrinkles, to the attainment of beauty 
or to some phase of the care of the body. 

Magazines devoted to physical culture, to diet, to 
vegetarianism, etc., are widely circulated and read ; 
there are books devoted to the thesis that fruit acids 
are deleterious and poisonous, and other books to 
prove that they are indispensable. Pseudo-scientific 
articles attempting to show that potatoes produce 
large abdomens, that tea causes the teeth to pro- 
trude, that carbohydrates have the effect of overde- 
veloping the chin, that onions relax the jaw tissues, 
and a host of like absurdities, have appeared in 
popular magazines. Books have been written which 
try to prove that all our ills come from uric acid 
foods, and many essays and pamphlets to show that 
that proposition was not true. 

Then there are raw-food people and vegetarians 
and partial vegetarians and nutarians and fruit- 
arians ; also there are grape cures and apple cures 
and milk cures and hunger cures and thirst cures. 
The stores are full of malted foods and steamed 
foods and digested foods and concentrated foods 
p.nd health foods, and finallv. after seventeen vears 



io CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

of unrighteous opposition on the floor of the United 
States Senate, the Pure Food Bill has passed. 

All of which goes to show that the popular mind 
has been awakened and directed, however mistak- 
enly, toward the subject of the care of the body. As 
is often the case, the medical profession is lagging 
in the rear. Nothing corresponding to the popular 
interest in the subject has been awakened in the 
professional mind. There is probably no subject 
connected with the care of patients that doctors are 
so perplexed by as diet. Many physicians have 
their ideas of diet based purely on prejudice; what 
happens to agree with them personally they recom- 
mend to their patients, and what disagrees with their 
particular organism they sternly forbid. The ques- 
tions most frequently propounded to doctors bv pa- 
tients probably relate to the diet, and the most con- 
fusing and inaccurate directions that patients 
receive from doctors relate to the same important 
subject. A knowledge of the principles common to 
all foods, and the function of each, is indispensable 
to a physician. A knowledge of the proportion of 
these constituents in many of the standard foods 
should follow, and would be found of the greatest 
advantage in practice. A knowledge of the general 
principles of cooking is also extremely useful. 

These considerations, together with the fact that 
the branch of dietetics which relates to standard 
dietaries has very recently undergone changes so 
great that they are little short of revolutionary, 
seem to indicate that a concise book upon the sub- 
ject embodying the latest views might be welcome. 

J. B. S. King, M. D. 
Suite 1008 Masonic Temple, Chicago. 
March, 1906. 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF NUTRITION. 
Chemical Constituents of Food. 

Human food in the complex must contain all the 
elements of the human body. The elements of the 
human body are as follows : 

Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen (gaseous). 

Potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium (mineral 
and basic). 

Phosphorus, sulphur, chlorine, iodine (^mineral 
and acidulous). 

Silicon, iron (mineral and metallic). 

Traces of other elements, such as arsenic and 
copper, are found in minute quantities, but the 
above are all that are of practical interest so far as 
the study of nutrition goes. 

None of the above elements exists in a free state. 
either in food or in the body ; they are all chem- 
ically combined to form certain compounds, and it 
is these compounds that are to be studied as the 
principles of food. The first of these is 

Water. — Composed of the elements hydrogen 
and oxygen of the above list ; it is the universal 
medium, diluent and solvent, found in all foods and 
indispensable to life. It is not decomposed in the 
body, and hence furnishes no energy ; various foods 

*Chlorine, although a gas, is here classed with acidulous 
minerals on account of its analogy to iodine. 

II 



12 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

contain from 10 to 95 and the human body 70 per 
cent of it. 

Mineral Matters. — These are alkaline and 
earthy salts ; they consist of calcium, magnesium, 
potassium and sodium, combined with sulphuric and 
phosphoric acids to form sulphates and phosphates, 
and with chlorine to form chlorides. Phosphorus, 
sulphur and iodine also exist and perform important 
functions, in combination with organic albumins. 
Sodium chloride is found in larger proportion in 
the serum of the blood, potassium chloride in the 
red blood corpuscles and in muscle cells, potassium 
phosphate in the brain and nerve tissue ; calcium, 
magnesium and silicon in the cartilages, bones and 
teeth ; iodine in the glands, and iron in the red cor- 
puscles. 

There are about seven and one-half pounds of 
mineral matter in an average sized man, live-sixths 
of which is in the osseous framework. Five per cent 
of the whole body consists of mineral matters ; they 
are absolutely essential to life, and even if all the 
other constituents of food are furnished, death oc- 
curs after about one month of their absence. The 
daily intake and output of mineral matter is about 
400 grains, something less than an ounce, and would 
be fullv supplied by ordinary food, even without 
the extra additions of common salt that the cook 
usually adds. 

The most important minerals are lime, soda, iron 
and phosphoric acid. Phosphorus plays an impor- 
tant role in nutrition ; in addition to its usefulness in 
building the bony tissues^ it is an essential of cell 
activity. Next to the bones, the brain and nerves 
are rich in phosphorus. Strange to say, the liga- 
ments and tendons, whose function is so similar to 



CHEMISTRY OF FOODS, 13 

bones, contain the least phosphorus of any animal 
tissue. The daily need of iron is very small, only 
about one-sixth of a grain, and that amount is 
easily contained in ordinary food. 

Protein. — Nitrogen is the characteristic element 
of this class. It includes the most essential as well 
as the most worthless of foods. The American 
Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experi- 
ment Stations adopted and recommended the term 
protein, in place of proteid, albumin, albuminoids, 
nitrogenous foods, etc., employed by various writers, 
and this name is here used. 

Protein may be divided into three classes, albu- 
minoids, gelatinoids and extractives. (Note I.) 

Albuminoids include the white of egg, the lean 
of meat, the casein of milk and the gluten of wheat. 
These are indispensable ; life cannot be maintained 
without them. They build up new tissue during the 
period of growth ; the}- repair the waste of tissue in 
adult life and, by virtue of the carbon and hydrogen 
that they contain, they also contribute to the heat 
and energy of the body. 

Gelatinoids occupy a very secondary position, for 
the reason that their nitrogen is not available for 
the repair of tissue, as is that of the albuminoids ; 
they save the latter from being consumed, however, 
and leave it intact to perform its tissue-building, in- 
stead of being used up in energy ; hence they are 
sometimes called albumin-sparers. Gelatin is a 
familiar example of this class ; glue is an impure 
form of it. 

Extractives come under this head only because 
they contain nitrogen ; they furnish scarcely any 
strength to the body and are very hard to eliminate, 
being potent producers of uric acid. They serve 



M CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

as stimulants and appetizers. The agreeable savor 
of cooked meats is largely due to extractives, and 
they form the principal part of the commercial meat 
extracts. 

The above facts are shown in a summary in the 
following table : 

Constituents of Food in General. 

Water Hydrogen and Oxy- The universal 

gen. diluent and 

solvent 

Minerals Earthy and Alka- Calcium, Magnesi- Necessary to 

line Salts. um, Sodium, Potas- osmosis, and 

sium, Phosphorus, assimilation: 
Chlorine, Sulphur, maintain the 
Iron, and Silicon. alkaline reac- 
tion of the tis- 
sues. 

Hydrocarbons. .Fats and Oil>. Carbon, Hydrogen. Heat and En- 

Oxygen, ergy. 

Carbohydrates. Starches. Sugars, Carbon, Hydrogen. Energy and 
Gums. Oxygen. Heat. 

Protein Meat, Fish, Eggs, Nitrogen, Carbon, Tissue build- 
Peas, Grains, Hydrogen, Oxygen, ers and re- 
Beans, Cheese, pairers. Ener- 
Gelatine. gy and Heat. 

The Functions of Food. 

It may be seen from the above that food has a 
threefold function : First, it must supply animal 
heat ; second, it must supply energy for work ; third, 
it must furnish the elements for growth and for 
the replacing of worn-out tissue. 

Animal heat is supplied by all the foods contain- 
ing carbon ; in the highest degree by fats and oils ; 
in a considerable degree by sugars and starches 
and also by protein. 



FUNCTIONS OF FOOD. 15 

Functions of Food. 

Energy for work is furnished largely by the 
starches and sugars and also by the fats and oils. 
Protein is also capable of furnishing energy with 
great rapidity. 

The building and repair of tissue is the peculiar 
function of protein. It will be noticed that protein 
alone is capable of fulfilling all the functions of 
food, and this universality of use gives it its great 
prominence. Instances can be cited where men 
have lived for long periods of time with a high 
degree of vigor and well-being upon nothing but 
water, meat and salt. Such a highly nitrogenous 
diet, however, requires an active life in the open 
air, and even then should not be maintained in- 
definitely. 

For reasons hereafter stated it seems desirable 
that the protein consumption should not be much 
in excess of the amount required to make good the 
tissue waste, and that most of the requisite heat 
and energy of the body should be derived from the 
carbohydrates and fat, rather than from protein, 

The comparison of the human body to a steam 
engine is so old that, when used now, it is generally 
with an apology for its triteness. It is, notwith- 
standing, a very useful and apt illustration of many 
things about nutrition. Thus the protein that main- 
tains the integrity of the tissues may be compared 
to the steel and iron that replace old and worn-out 
parts and keep the engine in repair. 

The carbonaceous food that supplies animal heat 
and the ability to do work is like the coal that makes 
the steam pressure. The comparison may easily 
be extended with advantage to the subject of ex- 
creta. 



io IEMISTRY OF F. 

The burning of coal under the boiler and the 

digestion of food in the body are essentially alike 

in that they are processes of oxidation or combus- 

-. the inevitable result of which is waste products 

or ashes. 

It the coal is of good quality and in proper quan- 
tity, the ash is tine and completely burned. If of 
poor quality or in too large quantity, clinkers and 
incompletely consumed cinders is the result. If the 
draft is slow or the supply of air deficient, cinders 
are again in evidence. 

Normal urine and feces represent the tine, well- 
burned ash of good coal. Uric acid crystals, amor- 
phous urates and phosphatic sediments in the body 
or urine, from overeating or from improper food, 
correspond to the clinkers and half -burned cinders 
from bad coal or too much fuel that clog the tire. 
When resulting from insufficient exercise or scanty 
intake of oxygen, as in the damaged lungs of a con- 
sumptive, they represent the same thing when oc- 
curring from c draft. 

The smoke and vapors that escape through the 
chimney represent the expired air and the gaseous 
waste of the system. An important difference is 
that the human engine builds its own parts, repairs 
its own breaks, oils its own joints, frees its own 
pipes and keeps up its own tires, with an economy 
and perfection that the best mechanism of man only 
clumsily and inadequately imitates. I Xote II.") 

Staxparp of Value. 

One of the inherent difficulties of the subject 
diet has been to fix some standard by which the 
relative nutritive value of food might be measur 



STANDARD 0F l VAl l i; 

Of late years a standard of value has been adopted, 
called the Calorie, which allows of a much more 
accurate comparison of various foods than was for- 
merly possible. It is based upon the fact that the 
digestion of food Is essentially the combustion of 
food, and the amount of heat evolved by the com- 
plete combustion of a certain amount of food has 
been found to be the best index of its nutritive 
value that we have. 

The amount of food used in the experiment is 
one gram (15^/2 grains). 

The standard of heat production is called a Ca- 
lorie, written with a capital, and means the amount 
of heat required to raise one liter of water one 
degree Centigrade (or one pound of water four 
degrees Fahr.). To ascertain the value of any food 
by this standard one has to find out how many de- 
grees Centigrade one liter of water is raised by the 
complete combustion of one gram of the food in 
question. The result gives the value of the food in 
terms of Calories. It is freelv admitted that com- 
bustion outside the body and digestion within it 
are not strictly convertible terms, especially in re- 
gard to protein, yet even with this admission, it has 
been found that no other method of comparison 
gives such an accurate idea of food values. The 
fuel value of one gram of each of the three impor- 
tant constituents of food, according to the most 
recent experiments, made by Atwater, is as follows : 
( Note III.) 

Protein 4 Calories 

Carbohvdrate 4 

Fat . ' 9.1 " 



i8 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

To apply the Calorie standard to any food it is 
only necessary to know its chemical composition, 
and then to multiply the percentage of protein and 
carbohydrate by four and the percentage of fat by 
o.i. The result gives the number of Calories af- 
forded by IOO grams of the food. 

For example : Eggs contain, according to the 
average oi sixty analyses, 14.8 per cent of protein. 
10.5 per cent of fat and no carbohydrate to speak 
oi. Then 

14.8 \ 4 = 59.2 

10.5 X 9- 1 = 95-5 

1 54-; 

Therefore, the value of 100 grams of eggs (two 
average sized eggs) is 154.7 Calories. 

If a sample of milk contains 4 per cent of protein, 
5 per cent of sugar and 4 per cent of fat : then the 
Call ' [00 grams (3 1-3 ounces) would be 



4X4 


= 16 


5 \4 


= 20 


4\9-i 


=36 




72 



The usefulness of the Calorie standard is very 
great, but it should not be overestimated nor con- 
sidered as more than one factor, though an impor- 
tant one, in the comparison of foods. Ease of 
digestion, rapidity of digestion, completeness of 
absorption and cost must all be considered in put- 
ting a definite value upon an article of diet. Saw- 
dust, for instance, would give at least as high a 



ABSORPTION OF FOOD. 19 

Calorie value as starch, but owing to its indigesti- 
bility is of no nutritional value whatever. 

In order to give an idea of the fuel value of 
some common foods, the number of Calories yielded 
by 100 grams is given in the following table. One 
hundred grams (31-3 ounces) would not be far 
from the amount of edible substance in an ordi- 
nary helping of meat, eggs or potato at a meal. 

Calories. 

100 grams (3 1-3 oz.) medium fat pork 285 

bacon 620 

beef 170 

cheese 411 

oats • . 396 

wheat 339 

rice 347 

white bread .... 263 

johnny cake ... 248 

milk ' 72 

" " " eggs 154.7 

potato 66 

The Calorie value of the food for twenty-four 
hours of a man of average weight should be from 
1,500 to 3,000. The lower number for a sedentary 
life, the higher when engaged in active labor. 

Absorbability of Food. 

In estimating food values the question of the 
ease and completeness of its absorption becomes an 
important factor. The carbohydrates (starch and 
sugar) of all kinds of food seem to be absorbed 
to the last particle ; cellulose, although of the same 
percentage composition as starch, is not absorbed 



s 

its i 
>f all this si t sug 

- 3 g 

s - - ■ cast 

eas< 

s 
tg ting : . . 

g es I . 

ccs s re rei 

ss of protein abs 

... 
s small then - gpreatei isto 
ant is greater - - 

. ill s< - 

gest . lices 

.-,-,- t, is 

ess tha | . cent 
cas - ■ 
. . . tr cent toes 

Veg* 
shows greater loss 

.-;-,-' cons 

t 

- 
exceed meat as 
is 

at 5 . cent is *1 read 

s absorb etely dds 

, • t rs v t ? coarse bit s ["his is con 



II IMINATION 21 

ii.ii \ to the statements made bj man} food journals 
and even by works <>n the subject, bu1 is neyerthe 
lr s correct. The poinl was proved l>\ experiments 
made in the laborator) of the Universitj of Mum 1 
sota in 1890, ( Note I V.) 

The coarser breads, however, contain more of 
the various constituents of the grain and arc a 
belter food for growing children ; 1 ■ > < 1 foi those lead 
ing sedentary lives. 

I M.I M I N'A'I [ON. 

rhere is no fire without ashes, and the fire of 
life is no exception to the rule. The insoluble debris 
of food, the waste products of combustion and the 
detritus from the decay of tissue, all produce a 
quantity of effete matter thai musl be gotten rid 
of, in order thai the bod) maj be in a clean and 
healthy condition. 

The waste and useless end products of combus- 
tion in the body issue forth in various ways, through 
organic pipes and tubes, which may be compared 
to the sewers of a eii\ ; the carbon appears as 
carbon dioxide iu the expired air from the lungs, 
and as carbonates of the alkalies and alkaline earths 
in the urine and perspiration. 

Hydrogen escape: as water by the same routes. 
Phosphorus, sulphur and chlorine unite with o 
gen, forming acids, which, in turn, combine with 
the alkalies and earths to form soluble salts, which 
appear in the urine. 

The greater pari of the nitrogen (85 pei cent) 
appears in the urine as urea, a soluble neutral 
crystalline body; a pan also appears as ,-i hard, 
gritty, insoluble, crystalline, bi basic acid, known as 

uric arid. 



22 CHEMISTRY OF POOPS. 

Between the food as it enters the mouth and its 
ultimate waste products that leave the body there 
is a multitude of intermediates concerning which 
we are far from possessing complete knowledge. 

This much is known : The products of carbon 
metabolism, consisting, as they do, of carbon dioxide 
and water, are comparatively easy for the elimina- 
tive organs to handle. Owing to their fluid and 
gaseous nature they are not capable of seriously en- 
cumbering the system. The worst thing that they 
can do is to produce an excessive formation of 
fat, which, while not desirable, is not in itself 
poisonous. The same innocuousness does not go 
with the products of nitrogenous metabolism. These 
form a series of hard, more or less insoluble, crys- 
talline bodies that are passed along from tissue to 
tissue and from organ to organ with difficulty, 
and are prone to encumber and obstruct the organs 
through which they must pass and also to fret and 
injure their structure. 

Nor is it mere mechanical obstruction alone that 
characterizes them ; most, if not all. of these tissue- 
fretting bodies exert a positive toxic action upon 
the system. Xanthin, hypoxanthin. creatin, crea- 
tinin. adenin. ammonium carbamate, urea and uric 
acid are some of the principles that are known 
to exert a poisonous influence when present in 
the body in slight excess. 

All flesh foods contain these substances; they 
are also formed to a slight extent in our own tis- 
sues and from the digestion of vegetable protein. 
Such facts as we possess make it clear that excess 
of protein, especially of animal origin, is more 
harmful to health than excess of carbohydrates or 
fat. The many varieties of gout and innumerable 



DAILY AMOUNT 0I< FOOD. 23 

obscure diseased states have their roots in this 
nitrogenous debris-encumbered condition of the 
system. 

Thorough elimination means clean tissues, and 
clean tissues mean vigor, flexibility and endurance. 
It is evident from the foregoing considerations that 
nitrogenous foods clog the system more than others, 
and it is an obvious inference that too much of 
that kind of food is especially to be avoided. 
Attention and appreciation of these facts should 
impress upon the mind the importance of avoiding 
all excessive ingestion of food. It is by ingestion 
that elimination may be controlled, and the regula- 
tion of the intake of food is the only proper and 
orderly way to control it. 

It is most unfortunate that the public has been 
educated to regard catharsis as the key to proper 
elimination. The effects of overindulgence, glut- 
tony and improper foods are supposed to be 
promptly relieved by a cathartic pill, and this un- 
scientific delusion is fostered by numerous patent 
medicine advertisements in the daily press. The 
profession should endeavor to teach the laity that 
the evacuation of the bowels is the last and outer- 
most of a long series of internal purifications, and 
that to force them to overaction is to begin purifica- 
tion at the wrong end. It is certainly a very 
inadequate corrective of improper eating. 

The Daily Amount of Food. 

As the result of many years' observation and 
experiment, certain amounts of each of the three 
chief food principles have been set down as neces- 
sary for the preservation of health and strength. 



:.i I UlSTRY 01 OODS 

The necessary data were obtained by the so-called 
empirical method, that is, by observations made 
upon health) individuals eating as much as the\ 
wanted of what they pleased. The food consumed 
was analyzed and the amounts of protein, carbohy 
drate and fat determined. Hie excreta during the 
same period were also analyzed, so as to show 
whether the income of food and the outgo, as 
represented h\ the exereta. were balanced or in 
equilibrium, 

The quantities thus obtained l\\ various observ 
ers, acting independently, were in fairly close agree 
ment with each other and averaged about as fol 
lows : 

Protein, i 20 gm. ( \ oz. | . fat, 59 gm. 
carbohydrate, 500 gm. ( 1 7 

It should be understood that these figures refer 
to dr\ material and not to food in its ordinary con- 
dition. Translated into quantities of food such as 
we handle and eat. it would he about as follows 

Beef, 13 01 . butter, a 01 . potatoes, 6 oz. ; 
bread, for the meals of twenty-four hours. 

The Calorie value is about 3,400. 

There seems to have been a \er\ general agree- 
ment by authorities on the subject (up to ver^ re- 
cent times) that the above quantities oi Foojl c 
Stituents were the minimum amount required h\ 
a man of average weight doing a moderate 
amount of muscular labor. Diminution in the pro 
tem was considered the most dangerous feature of 

derfeeding, and the hardest l cover from. 
h is only oi ven recent date that these figures 
have been criticized or questioned. The general 
principle that the ideal diet consisted of the smallest 
amount of protein (with carbohydrate added) that 



DAILY AM0UN1 OF loon 25 

would serve to keep up body weight and vigor was 
emphasized by all investigators. The difficulty was 
that when ii came to experiment, the data were 
gathered from human appetites and desires rather 
than from the actual needs of the body. 

When we reflect upon how much of self-indul- 
gence and gratification of the palate and how little 
of thought enters into the selection of what and 
how much we eat, we may realize how unsatisfac- 
tory and misleading must he the results deduced 
from such experiments. 

Mr. Horace Fletcher was die Columbus who, 

with the aid of a professional man. Dr. Van Som- 
eren, first pointed out that exceptional health and 
\ i.e;or could he maintained upon ahoiit one half the 
amount recommended in the accepted dietaries. 

The visit of Mr. Fletcher to the Vale University 
was epoch-making, fie succeeded in interesting 
Prof. R. II. Chittenden, director of the Sheffield 
Scientific School, to such an extenl that he was 
put in Professor Chittenden's laboratory for a 
period of thirteen days for the purpose of exact 
observation. The result was that a daily allow- 
ance of protein, 44.9 gin. ( \ ] /, ox. nearly) ; fat, 38 
gm. (ij4 oz.) ; carbohydrate, 253 gm. (#*/> oz.), 
kept Mr. Fletcher in nutritional equilibrium, al- 
though his weight is 105 pounds. The Calorie 
value of his food was aboul [,600 per diem. 

Then followed those well-known observations 
upon thirteen United States soldiers for a period 
of six months, which demonstrated that excellent 
health, increased vigor and full body weight could he- 
maintained upon a dietary consisting of about one- 
half of the protein called for in standard dietaries 
and this without any increase in carbohydrate. 



CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

These results were further extended and con- 
firmed by experiments upon five professional men 
;uul eight trained athletes, one oi the latter winning 
championships in two college events while under 
the restricted diet. 

These experiments were made upon different 
types of men and extended over sufficiently long 
periods of time to prove conclusively that there is 
no need for such quantities oi food as the prevalent 
dietar) standards call For. Health that was excep- 
tional and increased vigor are fully proved therein 
to be compatible with an amount of protein less 
h\ one-half, without any increase in fat and car- 
bohydrates, than is demanded by the figures ot 
Yoit. At water and others. It is safe, in view oi 
these recent experiments, to put the standard diet- 
aries upon a new basis. There is no real physio- 
logical need for more than: Protein, 50 £ nl - l !, M 
I ; fat, 50 gm, ( 1 : ; carbohydrate, 480 gm. 

(16 oz. ). 

This translated into quantities oi plain iooo] in its 
ordinary condition (not water free), would be: 
Beef, 5J 1 oz. ; butter, 1 -\\ oz. : potatoes, 6 oz. ; bread, 
10 oz., for twenty-four hours, oi which the Calorie 
value would he about 2,500, 

An inevitable defect about averages is that, how- 
ever true, they may not he applicable to particular 
individuals. It may he absolutely true, for instance, 
that the protein needs of a thousand men will 
average uo gm. 14 oz.), hut John Roe may he bet- 
ter o\\ on that amount, and Richard Doe on one-half 
that amount. Moreover, what is applicable to a 
man at rest would be too little tor him when at 
hard work, and as in daily life work cannot be 
measured, the varying needs i>i the individual 



DAILY AMOUNT OF FOOD. 27 

must be largely guesswork, notwithstanding scien- 
tific averages. Professor Chittenden does not say 
that his subjects received just the proper amounts 
of food for their daily needs ; he simply claims to 
have demonstrated that health and vigor can be 
maintained on much less food than science has here- 
tofore set down as the minimum. This was much, 
but there must be a "better way," according to Mr. 
Fletcher's phrase, for the individual to determine 
the kind and amount of food needed by the body 
for the varying factors of the rest and work of 
daily life. 

This is [lie problem that I lorace Fletcher has 
settled for all intelligent people who are willing 
to receive the information and pay the price of a 
little self-denial. With a full appreciation of the 
labors of Voit, Moleschott, Atwater, Playfair and 
others, it will one day be acknowledged that this 
simple discover) of Horace Fletcher (a layman) 
outweighs, or at least equals, in practical benefit to 
humanity all the valuable results obtained by these 
skilled professional scientists. 

What is this momentous discovery that teaches 
what food to eat to meet the individual's needs, and 
how much to eat at a meal to match the ever-vary- 
ing factors of rest and work, far better than aver- 
ages deduced by the most stupendous labors from 
thousands of analyses? 

It is so simple that it seems lamentable, and even 
ridiculous, that it has not been discovered before. 
Hundreds of books on the physiology of digestion 
have mentioned the importance of chewing the food 
but none of them with the emphasis necessary to 
change one's habits entirely and produce far-reach- 
ing benefits. This discovery is simply the mas- 



j8 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

tication of each mouthful of food until no taste is 
left in the morsel and the deglutition has been an 
involuntary process. Its simplicity is one of the 
formidable difficulties in the way of it? general 
adoption ; people will climb mountains, take nause- 
ous drugs, endure all kinds of disagreeable treat- 
ments to regain lost health, but this is too simple. 
Moreover, even when the mind is convinced and one 
starts in with the novel method, such is the invet- 
erate persistence of long-standing bad habits that 
for a long period eternal vigilance becomes the price 
of rational mastication. 

The method by which I have succeeded best in 
getting people to break up the life-long bad habit 
of premature deglutition is by the following steps, 
mostly taken from or suggested by Mr. Fletcher's 
"A-B-Z of Our Own Nutrition :" " 

First. Reflection upon what you are about to 
eat. Do you really want it. or are you going to eat 
whatever is put before you, simply because you have 
formed a habit of eating at this time? Re sure 
about this before you eat anything. Better go with- 
out a meal than put food that is not needed into 
your stomach, or eat simply because it is a habit. 

Second. Attention to each mouthful. It must 
be masticated and insalivated as long as there is any 
taste in the morsel, ft must not be swallowed 
until one is compelled to by the involuntary action 
of the faucial muscles. It is best not to talk while 
eating, until you have formed the habit of proper 
mouth digestion ; at first this will require the whole 
attention. 

Third. Appreciation. — It leads naturally to ap- 
preciation of flavors and savors unknown before. 
and such as the bolter of food can never know. 



DAILY AMOUNT OF FOOD. 29 

Observance of these three rules gradually leads 
to 

Instinctive knowledge of what supplies the 
needs of one's system, and the proper quantity of it. 
After a time some things that you were fond of 
will grow distasteful, which will show that they 
are not good for you, and some plain foods, that 
you were indifferent to, become sweet and attract- 
ive. There will follow 

Evacuation of dry stools, less frequently, less 
in amount and less malodorous than under ordinary 
habits. 



CHEMISTRY OF SPECIAL FOODS. 
Milk. 

Milk is a complete food, furnished ready for use 
by nature. It is a kind of epitome of food in gen- 
eral, for representatives of each of the important 
principles of nutrition are found in it, namely, pro- 
tein, carbohydrate, fat. salts and water. It fur- 
nishes, moreover, a fine example of the exquisite 
adaptation of nature's products to the end in 
view, for the milk of every animal is accurately 
fitted by its composition to the needs of the young 
for whom it is intended. For instance, the milk of 
the walrus, whale and seal is excessively rich in 
fat — ten tim.es richer than cow's milk — with the 
evident purpose that the young animal may be en- 
abled to resist the rigors of the Arctic winter by an 
abundance of this heat-producing principle. 

The solids in cows' milk amount to about 13 
per cent. They are: Protein. 4 per cent (3.5 
casein, 5 lactalbumin) ; fat, 4 or 5 per cent; milk- 
sugar, 4 per cent ; mineral salts, .7 per cent. These 
are the average amounts only, for it must be re- 
membered that milk varies greatly in composition : 
this is owing not only to adulteration but also to 
the quantity and character of the fodder given the 
cows. 

Casein. — The chief nitrogenous constituent of 
milk is casein ; it differs from other protein com- 

30 



MILK. 31 

pounds in containing both phosphorus and sulphur, 
and is the principal material out of which the tis- 
sues of the young are constructed. Heat does not 
coagulate it, but it is very easily clotted or curdled 
by the action of acids and by rennet. Casein con- 
tains no nuclein. Since nuclein is the chief source of 
uric acid, it is important to know this when selecting 
a diet for cases in which uric acid is deleterious. 
Moreover, it differs from other proteins in yield- 
ing carbohydrate with difficulty when split up by the 
digestive process, a fact which should make it of 
special value in diabetes mellitus. 

The onlv other protein of milk is lactalbumin ; 
it is present in cows' milk in the proportion of about 
one-seventh of the total protein. It differs from 
casein in being coagulated by heat, and constitutes 
the skin which forms on milk when boiled. In 
human milk it forms one-half the total protein, and 
this fact furnishes a key to the frequent occurrence 
of indigestion from tough curds of casein in infants 
fed upon cows' milk. The total protein of cows' 
milk averages 4 per cent. The curd artificially pre- 
cipitated by an acid or from spontaneously soured 
milk is casein, with the butter entangled in it ; it is 
soluble in a weak alkali. 

Butter. — The fat of milk is butter and is pres- 
ent in about the proportion of 4 per cent. Owing 
to its low melting point, its fine emulsification and 
the extraordinarily large amount of fatty acids in 
its composition, it is one of the most easily digested 
of fats. Even when so large a quantity as one- 
quarter pound per day is consumed, less than one- 
half of 1 per cent is unabsorbed, which is a better 
result than can be obtained from any other animal 
fat, with the possible exception of the fixed oil of 



32 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

egg yolks. Owing to its palatability it is a very 
valuable aid in the dietetic treatment of diabetes. 

Carbohydrates. — Lactose or milk sugar is the 
carbohydrate of milk ; with glycogen from the liver 
and honey from the bee, it comprises the only car- 
bohydrates from the animal kingdom. It is less 
soluble, less sweet and less susceptible to fermenta- 
tion than cane sugar, though, like it, its molecule 
contains 12 carbon atoms. In the presence of 
warmth and certain very common micro-organ- 
isms, it is easily converted into lactic acid, which is 
the cause of milk turning sour and curdling when 
allowed to stand in a warm place. Cows' milk 
averages 4 per cent of milk sugar ; human milk con- 
tains about 7 per cent, and hence is considerably 
sweeter. Skimmed milk and separated milk, that is, 
milk from which the cream has been removed, owe 
their highly nutritious quality to the lactose and 
casein which still remain, together with such a mini- 
mum of fat as has escaped the process. Bread 
made with skimmed milk is decidedly stronger in 
nutritive qualities than ordinary bread, as has been 
proved bv analyses in the University of Minnesota. 

Mineral Matter. — Salts are present in the pro- 
portion of 0.7 per cent, and they vary less than any 
of . the other constituents of milk. The salts are 
present in exactly the proportion that they exist in 
the body of the animal that they are designed to 
nourish. The phosphates, chlorides and sulphates 
are in much the same proportion that they are in 
the blood. Potassium salts are in larger proportion 
than sodium salts ; they supply muscular tissue, 
while the latter are found more in the fluids of the 
body. The calcium, which is abundant, plays an 



MILK. 33 

important and necessary role in the growth of the 
cartilages and bones. 

The only deficiency in milk is iron ; this metal 
is very scantily represented. There is only about 
one grain in five gallons of milk, and it would 
take a large volume to supply an adult with his 
daily quantum of iron. Hence, under an exclusive 
milk diet, one is apt to gradually become anaemic. 
The new-born infant is stocked up, so to speak, 
with iron when it arrives in the world, and this 
excess serves the needs of its body until it begins 
to take other food. Another constituent of milk 
that plays an important role as a preventive of 
scurvy and rickets is citric acid in combination with 
calcium. It is present in considerable quantity 
and forms the gritty, tasteless deposit often noticed 
in condensed milk. Boiling the milk probably alters 
the citric acid salt in some way, for children raised 
on boiled milk are very obnoxious to rickets and 
scurvy. 

Eighty-five to 88 per cent of milk is water, and 
this fact makes it too bulky for a perfect food for 
adults as it is frequently claimed to be. It also 
affords the possibility of a great variation in the 
strength of the fluid without any very obvious 
change in its physical properties ; probably no food 
presents such a wide variation in its percentage 
composition as does milk. 

From all this it will be seen that milk is an abso- 
lutely perfect food for infants ; it contains the neces- 
sary salts and the relative excess of protein for the 
increasing body of a young and growing animal, 
but these very facts render it inappropriate as an 
exclusive or perfect food for the adult. 

For the adult the 88 per cent of water makes 



34 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

milk too bulky ; in order to bring the solids and 
Calorie value up to that indicated in standard 
dietaries, nine or ten pints would have to be con- 
sumed daily, a volume of fluid that would throw 
an excessive amount of work upon the kidneys. 
Then, again, the amounts of protein and fat relative 
to the carbohydrates are such that, in order to get 
enough of the latter, far too much of the former 
would have to be consumed. As has been stated, 
protein is the most difficult of the nutritive princi- 
ples for the body to eliminate and, therefore, the 
one whose excess is most injurious. 

If the excess of protein is balanced by a carbohy- 
drate the difficulty is at once removed, and the 
natural instincts of appetite have seized upon such 
combinations as favorite dishes ; such are bread 
and milk, rice and milk, corn starch and milk, etc. 
How much this reduces the bulk of one's diet is 
illustrated by this : 

Milk — Nine pints ^same as 9 pounds^ = 3.000 C. 

Bread and milk — Two loaves bread and 2 pints 
milk (4 pounds) = 3.270 C. 

The milk-alone diet weighs about 9 pounds, the 
bread and milk about 4 pounds, and yet the latter 
reaches a higher Calorie value and does not encum- 
ber the tissues with an overplus of the crystalline 
products of nitrogenous metamorphoses. 

Effects of Heat. — When milk is boiled a tough 
skin forms upon it ; this consists of a coagulable 
albumin that exists in milk in small quantity (one- 
seventh of total protein V called lactalbumin, of lime 
salts and a little of the casein. At the same time 
the milk acquires a peculiar taste and loses some 
of its nutritive value, which, to a certain extent, 
makes it inadequate for the needs of infants. The 



MILK. 35 

application of heat, then, changes its taste, coagu- 
lates the lactalbumin, injures the fine emulsification 
of the fat and renders the casein less easy of diges- 
tion ; it also probably throws the citrate of lime 
partially out of solution. Thus, with the view of 
freeing milk from harmful bacteria possibly present, 
the attempt has been repeatedly made to raise chil- 
dren upon sterilized milk, and almost always with 
disastrous results. Considering these facts, Hutch- 
inson is putting it too strong when he "looks for- 
ward to the day when the drinking of raw milk will 
be considered as barbarous a custom as the eating 
of raw meat is at the present day." 

Condensed Milks. — There are two varieties of 
condensed milks on the market, one sweetened and 
the other unsweetened. The first contains from 
15 to 17 per cent of milk sugar and 33 to 40 per cent 
of cane sugar. The latter, which is much the 
better, contains the 16 per cent of milk sugar only. 
Both are used largely for infant feeding, but are 
not to be recommended except for temporary use. 
Infants raised on this food may seem to thrive for 
a time, and often become quite fat (owing to the 
excess of sugar), but offer little resistance to dis- 
ease and are often rachitic. 

Buttermilk. — This is practically the same in 
composition as skim milk. It contains all the pro- 
tein and all the carbohydrate, and is lacking only 
in the fat, which has been removed by churning. 
It offers a very cheap and should be a very useful 
source of protein, but is usually devoted in this 
country to the fattening of pigs. The sourness is 
due to the presence of lactic acid, which is present 
in small amount, usually less than 1 per cent. It 
is an excellent diuretic and causes a free flow of 



36 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

urine; eight ounces of buttermilk drank just before 
retiring will, for a time at least, cause an increase 
of considerably more than its own volume in the 
twenty-four hours' urine, without any other change 
in the habits. After the small amount of lactic acid 
is removed by digestion, the calcium, potassium 
and sodium salts that it contains equally with fresh 
milk should render it an excellent solvent for 
uric acid, and thus a purifier of the tissues. The 
free use of buttermilk has lately been advocated 
by good authority as a great prolonger of life. 
Although one would not suspect it, it not infre- 
quently seems to inhibit fermentation in cases of 
gastric catarrh. 

The .Milk Cure. — Among the many diet cures 
that have been advanced of late years is the milk 
cure. It consists of a course of from three to six 
weeks of an exclusive milk diet. It was recom- 
mended centuries ago for gout and some other dis- 
eases of a chronic nature. The milk should be 
skimmed, should be quite fresh, not cooked in any 
way and slowly consumed, so that, although there 
can be no chewing, yet there should be insalivation. 
The directions usually given are that six ounces 
should be sipped every three or four hours of the 
sixteen waking hours, for a few days, and then the 
quantity increased to eight, and finally to a larger 
quantity, until five or six pints are consumed in each 
twenty-four hours. The results are some drowsi- 
ness, slight pallor, a furred tongue, constipation and 
a free flow of pale, slightly greenish urine. 

There is hardly a fanciful idea under the heavens 
that has not been tried and recommended as a 
cure-all, at some time in the history of the world. 
The milk cure is not a cure for anvthine that absti- 



EGGS. 37 

nence from all food will not cure many times 
quicker. Abstinence from all food except water 
will do everything that the milk cure can do, and 
will do it much more quickly, without a furred 
tongue, drowsiness or any of the other unpleasant 
symptoms that arise from an exclusive diet of 
skimmed milk. 

Eggs. 

Next to milk, eggs are the most wonderful food- 
stuff in the world. Just as milk contains every 
variety of nutritive constituent for the newly born 
animal necessary to augment its size to treble, 
with the due proportion of all its numberless tissues, 
so an egg contains histogenetic elements in such a 
complete form that within its two ounces of smooth 
homogeneous slime lies the possibility of a new 
life. It is a concrete miracle, but because of its 
everyday occurrence it fails to raise our admiration. 
Out of the amorphous, structureless jelly, without 
extraneous addition, the chick, organized from mar- 
row to cuticle — muscle, feathers, bones, blood and 
vessels — springs into life and separate existence. 
It is not food for the chick ; it is the chick. The 
absence of carbohydrates is noticeable, and goes 
far to confirm their close relation to muscular 
motion. 

The average weight of a hen's egg is two ounces, 
about ii per cent of which is shell, 57 per cent 
white and 32 per cent yolk. It is not so perfect a 
food as milk, for it lacks entirely that important 
source of energy, carbohydrate ; this is because this 
principle is the chief source of muscular movements, 
and within the narrow confines of the shell there 
is practically no movement. 



j8 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

The shell is composed chiefly of lime carbonate 
and is not nutritive. 

The white is a solution of pure albumin, the pur- 
est in nature. It consists of 85 to 88 per cent of 
water, 12 per cent protein, with scarcely any fat 
or minerals. It is practically a saturated solution 
of albumin. The small amount of mineral matter 
is potassium and sodium in combination with sul- 
phur, chlorine and carbonic acid as sulphates, chlor- 
ides and carbonates. There is no sulphate and little 
chlorides in the yolk, but much phosphorus and 
lime. 

The yolk is very complex in composition ; from 
it the nervous system of the chick is developed. 
It contains 15 or 16 per cent of protein, 32 or 33 
per cent of fat in the shape of a clear yellow oil. 
The oil consists of olein, palmitin and stearin and. 
owing to its fluidity and fine emulsification, is one 
of the most digestible forms of fat. It has been 
used with success in the nourishment of infants. A 
part of this fat is in the form of lecithin, a viscid, 
phosphorized oil { also containing nitrogen. This 
peculiar and priceless substance exists only in very 
small quantity in cereals and legumes, in brain tissue 
and nerve substance. Xuclein is also present, and 
mineral matter, including the salts of iron, in much 
larger proportion than in the white. The element 
phosphorus found in the lecithin and in the nuclein 
amounts to 1 per cent of the entire interior of the 
egg. Cerebrin. one of the constituents of the 
human brain, of unknown function and nutritive 
value, is present in the yolk ; it contains nitrogen, 
but no phosphorus. The peculiar value of the yolk 
of egg is the large amount of phosphorus and iron 
it contains in organic combination, and hence in an 



MEAT. 39 

easily absorbable form. Seven egg yolks daily 
would supply all the iron required by a man of aver- 
age weight. 

One egg yields about 75 Calories of energy ; eight 
eggs are about equal in nutritive value to one pound 
of steak. The white is a builder and restorer of 
tissue after muscular labor. The yolk is far more 
valuable ; this is owing to its great richness in iron, 
lime and phosphorus. It is a food of special value 
to chlorotic girls and to anemic persons in general. 
The yolk comes as near to a special nerve and brain 
food as any that exists. The whole egg, that is the 
white and the yolk, is an ideal restorative for cases 
of anemia due to suppuration, such as pulmonary 
tuberculosis. Combined with starchy food, such as 
rice, potato or white bread, eggs form a complete 
food. 

Meat. 

The consumption of meat per capita has been 
gradually increasing in the United States for many 
years, until now this is the largest meat-consuming 
country in the world. 

The value of meat as food depends upon its 
protein, fat and salts. The important food prin- 
ciple, carbohydrate, is entirely lacking in its com- 
position. The use of meat as a food is a bone of 
contention ; those who agree on every other article 
of diet differ widely when it comes to meat. Ex- 
tremists claim it is a poisonous food, high in price, 
deleterious to health and morals, productive of gout, 
rheumatism and cancer. To show that it is not 
necessary to the highest vigor, they point to the rice- 
eating Japanese and how they recently shamed the 
meat-eating Russians in efficiency, endurance and 
courage. 



40 



CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 



Those who take the opposite view show its nutri- 
tious constituents, its digestibility, its complete ab- 
sorption and the enterprise and activity of meat- 
eating nations. They point out that the Japanese 
consume a large proportion of fish to balance their 
rice, which explains their remarkable endurance. 

So far as physiological argument goes, it seems 
that the vegetarians have the best of it. All the 
protein, fat. salts and carbohydrates that the body 
needs may be derived from the products of the 
vegetable kingdom. It is true that, if the old 
dietary standards are followed, a greater bulk of 
vegetable food must be eaten to furnish the required 
amount of protein, but if the latest and undoubtedly 
correct standards are followed, this objection will 
be in large part removed. 

This book is not an advocate of vegetarianism, 
but it is an advocate of the principle that we 
should derive our muscular force and bodily heat 
rather from carbohydrates than from protein, and 
this involves a reduction in the amount of meat, 
though not abstinence from it. 

The bone, gristle, tendon and inedible portion of 
meat amounts on an average to 15 per cent. The 
analysis of the edible portion gives the following 
results : 



Sirloin (lean) 
Sirloin (fat).. 
Chuck Ribs 
(medium fat) 
Round 






70. S 
54-7 

c ; j - 
655 



Protein. Fat. 



Carbo- 
hydrate. 



Ash. 



24.6 

-- s 
18.5 

20.3 



27.6 

18. 

13 



0.00 
0.00 



0.00 
0.00 



i-3 

•9 

i. 

1. 



Fuel Value 
Per Pound. 



615 
1490 

II05 
950 



MEAT, 41 

The protein of meat IS of such a nature that it is 
easily broken down by the digestive fluids, with the 
rapid liberation of heat and energy. On account 
of this, and probably also because the products of 
its breaking down act as stimulants to the cells, 
it produces a feeling of well-being and capability. 
Its stimulating effect is most strikingly noticed in 
those unaccustomed to its use, when it produces 
a state oi nervous erythrism almost amounting to 
intoxication. These qualities make it the most ef- 
fective I'ood for short, sharp, severe exertion, and 
justify its use in training for athletic events, al- 
though not to the extent used by many trainers. 
Excessive meat consumption is the most common 
cause (A athletes becoming "stale;" that is, it takes 
a man to the acme of his capacity for severe exer- 
tion, hut cannot hold him there for more than a 
brief period. It is part of the trainer's art to lead 
up to this "feather-edge" condition, so that it will 
coincide with the day of the fight or race. Such 
training is done at the expense of the future health. 
The objection to eating - meat to such an extent that 
the most of one's energy is derived from it, is that 
a certain part of its nitrogenous constituents, being 
hard and crystalline, are difficult to eliminate. They 
may slowly accumulate in the system, causing nodes 
and deposits, or they may fall out of solution, caus- 
ing an acute attack of gout, or they may be elimi- 
nated, gradually producing damage to the delicate 
structure of the kidneys, causing Bright's disease. 
The purin bodies, xanthin, sarcin, adenin and uric 
acid, are contained in the flesh and glands of ani- 
mals, and when introduced into the body as flesh 
foods are mostly oxidized to and eliminated as 
uric acid, a hard, gritty, insoluble crystalline acid. 



43 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

The solution of this in the fluids of the body is 
greatly favored by their alkaline reaction. Meat 
eating not only introduces them but, by reducing 
the alkalinity of the blood, throws out of solution 
those previously introduced and accumulated. 

The question of training for athletic events is not 
settled yet. Practical trainers, looking to the prepa- 
ration for a single great exertion, such as a prize 
fight, are in favor of meat, but they may be in 
error even for that purpose ; indeed, the most 
reliable experiments that have been made — those 
at the Yale University — rather point the other way. 
It is certain that the amounts of protein consumed 
by Americans, in the form of meat, is very far in 
excess of what nature requires for the repair of 
waste. Of the various meats, beef is the easiest of 
digestion, pork the least so. Immature meats, like 
veal and lamb, are less digestible than beef. There 
is only about 5 per cent unabsorbed, so that a meat 
diet leaves a very small residue for the intestine to 
handle. 

Fish. 

Fish, like meat, furnish protein and fat, but no 
carbohydrate. As a rule, fish are more easy of di- 
gestion than meat, and are equally well absorbed. 
Two special qualities have been attributed to fish. 
One is that they are an especial food for the brain, 
and the other that a fish diet possesses aphrodisiac 
properties. The first idea was formulated theo- 
retically by Agassiz upon an erroneous analysis. 
The second was maintained by Brillat-Savarin, 
one of the greatest epicures that ever lived. 

Experience of several observers seems to show 
that a meal of fish does increase the animal pro- 



FISH. 



43 



pensities, and this is especially true of caviar, the 
roe of the Russian sturgeon, a fact which one may 
bear in mind in cases of sexual weakness. In coun- 
tries near the sea, fish generally form the cheapest 
source of protein in existence. 

The constituents of some of the important food 
fish in the fresh state is shown in the following 
table : 





Water. 


Pro- 
tein. 


Fat. 


Carbo- 
bydrait 


Ash. 


Fuel Value 
Per Pound. 


Cod Fish 

Salmon 

(entrails removed) 
Mackerel 


82. 

48.1 
40.4 


16.5 

13.8 
10.2 


•4 

8.1 

4 -2 


0.00 

O.oo 
0.00 


1.2 

.8 
' 7 


325 

600 
365 



Oysters. 

Oysters are one of the most popular of sea foods, 
especially in the United States. They share with milk 
the distinction of containing all the nutritive prin- 
ciples, though fat is only slightly represented. They 
may be said to be water slightly gelatinized by 
organic matter. They contain the following pro- 
portions of food constituents : 



j Water. 


Protein. 


Fat. 


Carbo- 
hydrate. 


Ash. 


Fuel Value 
Per Pound. 


Oysters 
(without shells). 


88.3 


6. 


i-3 


3-3 


1. 1 


230 



They possess the advantage of being easily di- 
gested. The irregular, blackish portion in the 
bellv of the ovster is the liver, and is almost self- 



44 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

digesting when broken up and mixed with the 
other tissues. Being merely a soft, gelatinous mass 
of organic matter, oysters are peculiarly liable to 
decomposition, with the occasional production of 
poisonous ptomains. The green discoloration which 
sometimes excites the suspicion of householders is 
not so bad as it looks, being caused by harmless 
green algae. 

Vegetable Food. 

The vegetable kingdom furnishes all the elements 
of food in cheaper form than meat and without the 
undesirable excess of protein. The predominant 
feature of vegetables is the large proportion of car- 
bohydrates, a feature which offers a striking differ- 
ence to animal flesh, which contains practically no 
carbohydrate. 

Vegetable foods are digested more largely in the 
intestines than meat. They are more bulky and, 
as a rule, less completely absorbed. It is a strong 
point in their favor that the various food constitu- 
ents are all represented in them, and in many vege- 
tables in a well-balanced proportion. 

In regard to the protein of vegetables, it has 
been found that the larger the per cent of it the 
more perfectly it is absorbed, and vice versa. Ex- 
perience and analogy show that endurance for 
steady, long continued effort is best furnished by 
vegetable food, while meat better supplies the power 
for a short but intense effort. Compare the rest- 
less, nervous, irritable activity of the meat-eating 
tiger with the sluggish movements of the mild-eyed 
granivorous cow, and you will see an embodied 
type of the two diets. 



VEGETABLE FOOD. 45 

Cereals. 

Cereal grains form the basis of bread, and bread 
is the basis of human nutrition, the real staff of 
life. The importance of cereals rests in the fact 
that they and their preparations furnish the chief 
food constituents, protein, carbohydrates, fat and 
minerals, cheaply, abundantly and in an agreeable 
form. These qualities, together with their complete 
absorption, place them in the front rank of human 
foods. 

In some cereals, such as rice and Indian corn, car- 
bohydrate predominates, making them prominent 
energy producers. In others, such as oats and In- 
dian corn, the considerable quantity of fat present 
makes them powerful heat producers. In all cereals 
the useful though variable proportion of protein en- 
ables them to furnish the elements necessary for 
the repair of tissue waste. 

Wheat is a representative and the most important 
of the class. The glutinosity of its protein pecu- 
liarly adapts it to the making of light, porous bread, 
and the well-balanced proportion of its constituents 
makes it a nearly complete food. Barley is one of 
the most ancient of human foods. It was highly 
esteemed by the athletes of ancient Greece. The 
amount of moisture in cereals varies but slightly and 
averages about n per cent. The general composi- 
tion of cereals may be summed up as follows : 

Water 1 1 per cent 

Protein 1 1 " 

Carbohvdrates .... 69 " 

Fat ..'. 2.5" " (y 2 to 8 per cent) 

Minerals 2 " " 



4 6 



CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 



The averages of a vast number of analyses of dif- 
ferent cereals made by the United States Depart 
ment of Agriculture is as follows : 



Water 

Protein 

Fat 

Cellulose (In- 
digestible) . 

Carbohy- 
drate 

Ash 

Calorie value 















-a 


eat. 


J. 


c = 

.as 


1) 


"3 -a 




V, 


■ 

10.60 


« 


•on 


m 


g» 


;*> 


0* 


O 


23 


£Q 


« 


x 


10. 


10.75 


to. 85 


12. 


10.50 


12.40 


12.25 


12. 


10. 


ti. 


IO.75 


12.25 


7-50 


1.75 


4.50 


4.25 


2.25 


2. 


1.50 


0.40 


2.40 


12. 


1-75 


3-85 


IO.75 


2.10 


0.40 


7125 


58. 


71-75 


69 -45 


62.75 


7'-75 


78.80 


i-75 


3 -50 


1.50 


2.50 


i-75 


1.90 


0.50 


1675 • 


1850. 


1730. 


1640. 


1660. 


1630. 


1630. 



— o 
o u 

a* 

3 



12.00 
8.00 
2.00 

I. OO 

76.OO 
I. OO 



1630. 



Averages are useful, but the reader should be 
careful not to apply them too rigidly to any par- 
ticular sample. The protein of wheat, for instance, 
may run as high as 17.15 per cent, as in one sample 
grown in Nebraska, or fall as low as 8.58 per cent, 
as in one sample from Oregon, although these are 
unusual extremes. The fat of Indian corn may, in 
a particular sample, reach almost 8 per cent. It 
may be stated in general that the cereals of the 
United States are the freest from moisture of any in 
the world. 

Flour and Meals. — Before using cereals for 
food, they are ground to a powder. When reduced 
to an impalpably fine powder the product is called 
flour, while the term meal is usually applied to the 
coarser products. 

The result of grinding is that certain desirable 
portions of the grain are lost, in company with some 
impurities that it is well to lose. A little over one- 



VEGETABLE FOOD. 47 

half of the mineral matter is lost, and as these ele- 
ments (especially the lime, potash and phosphorus) 
play an important role in the growth of tissue, 
it is better for children to eat bread made from 
the coarser flour than from the pure white, highly 
refined flour. 

The large financial interests involved in the 
production of wheat-flour, have resulted in more 
refinements in the process during twenty-five years 
than ten centuries of purely scientific interest would 
have produced. Twenty-five years ago the wheat 
was simply crushed between stones and separated 
by bolting or sifting into three products, i. e., 
bran, flour and middlings. AH the impurities were 
contained in these three grades. At the present time 
eighty-eight separate products are obtained by suc- 
cessive purifications, screenings and separations and 
the various qualities of commercial flour produced 
by judicious blending of these products. 

The three scant pages in which the United States 
Department of Agriculture, under the direction of 
H. W. Wiley, has recorded the results of the 
analysis of each of these eighty-eight products are 
probably the most laborious pages of literature in 
the world. 

It has been shown that a little more than 258 
pounds of a good quality of winter wheat yield one 
barrel of flour, 57.82 per cent of which is patent 
flour; 11.28 per cent is the so-called bakers' flour, 
and 6.77 per cent is low-grade flour. 

The patent flour is the high grade ; the two others 
in various mixtures or blends are sold under the 
names of Family, Bakers' or Red Dog flours. Be- 
side the above there are 25 per cent of bran, shorts 
and waste. 



4 8 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

Bread. 

Bread made from high-grade patent flour is the 
best for those engaged in outdoor labor. Graham, 
whole-wheat and the coarser breads are better for 
those engaged in sedentary mental occupations. The 
first is more completely absorbed, and the high con- 
tent of carbohydrate makes it a good food for the 
muscles. The constipating tendency of the small 
intestinal residue is overcome by the active life. 
There is enough nitrogen in the patent flour, aided 
by an occasional egg or small piece of steak or 
cheese, to supply protein abundantly to make up the 
tissue waste. 

The greater residue of the coarse bread tends to 
prevent the constipation of sedentary workers. 
These are also better for growing children. There 
is a wonderful amount of strength in bread for 
labor. The abstemious laborers of Spain maintain 
in their lean bodies a high degree of endurance 
and vigor upon bread, often very stale, and a little 
dry cheese made from goats' milk and water. A 
frugal diet that would excite the scorn of the better 
fed American. 

Especial care should be taken to see that bread 
is good in quality for it is in many poor families the 
largest part of the diet and the main food of the 
children. These flours show a higher proportion of 
protein, ash, fat and fiber, although the color of the 
bread is darkish and the gluten character not 
adapted to making a very light bread. 

This is also the best bread for sedentary indi- 
viduals who use their brains a good deal. The 
slightly increased amount of phosphorus serves as a 
stimulant to the internal processes, and the larger 



VEGETABLE FOOD. 49 

insoluble residue serves to increase the peristaltic 
movements of the bowels and thus obviate, in a 
measure, the constipating effect of lack of exer- 
cise. The term low grade, when applied to flour, 
does not mean poor Hour or one of an essentially 
inferior quality. It is a trade name for a dark 
family flour making a cheap, sweet, palatable and 
nutritious loaf, inferior to patent flour bread in 
the single quality of whiteness. 

Two-thirds of the bulk of fermented bread is 
gas ; of the solid residue about 40 per cent is water. 
A little more than 50 per cent is carbohydrate and 
there should be from 7 to 8 per cent of protein, 
leaving 2 per cent evenly divided between fat and 
minerals. 

This shows bread to be one of the least watery of 
vegetable foods. Home-made bread is a very varia- 
ble product, owing to the reluctance of the Ameri- 
can house-wife, to use scales and measures. From 
an economical standpoint, it is much cheaper than 
bakers' bread but it may be better or worse in 
quality according to the skill of the housekeeper. 
Allowing for the higher prices paid for smaller 
quantities, five pounds of the best patent flour will 
make about seven and one-half pounds of excellent 
bread at a cost of 23 cents, as the following' formula 
shows : 

5 pounds Flour 18 

405 grains Yeast 02 

40 fl. ozs. Water 

180 grains Salt ) 

480 grains Butter \ ° 

Fuel (Gasoline) 01 

.23 



50 CHEMISTRY 01 

If the flour is bought by the large bag or barrel, 
the cost would be reduced from 23 to iS cents. 
The same amount of bakers' bread would cost 38 
to 50 cents, according to whether pound loaves or 
u-ounce loaves were sold. The latter weight is 
now legal in Chicago. 

Salt-Rising Bread is very much preferred by 
many palates, but is rather more difficult to make 
successfully. Many of the failures are due to the 
fact that the modern patent flours contain little or 
none of the natural ferments of the grain, as did the 
flour that our mothers used. To overcome this 
difficulty, either the so-called low-grade flour must 
be used, or else a little whole wheat flour or corn 
meal must be used to start the fermentation. We 
have found the following process, recommended by 
the United States Department oi Agriculture in 
Part Ninth of Bulletin 13. to make a very delicious 
bread. 

One-quarter pint of milk is slowly heated to near 
the boiling point, but not allowed to boil. This 
sterilizes it and prevents premature or undue sour- 
ness in the yeast. When the temperature falls to 
blood heat, enough Indian corn is mixed in to make 
a batter. The vessel is wrapped with several thick- 
nesses of paper and set in a warm place for about 
six hours. The mixture should now look lively 
with bubbles and have a peculiar odor, which one 
soon learns to recognize. 

This is the ferment : now stir a teaspoonful of 
salt into one pint of warm water (ioo° F.) and 
enough of patent flour to make a stiff batter, add the 
corn mixture and allow the whole to stand in . a 
warm place for an hour or more. This is the salt 
rising ; this is mixed with enough of warm patent 



VEGETABLE FOODS. 5' 

flour dough to make six loaves, well kneaded, 
moulded into six loaves, and set in a warm place 
until each pan is full and baked. The taste, once 
gratified by this bread, is seldom satisfied with any 
other. To succeed, it is absolutely essential that 
a uniform heat be maintained from the first step to 
the last. 

Indian Corn. — In all parts of the United States, 
corn forms a considerable proportion of the food of 
the people. In the South, it makes the only form 
of bread ever tasted by thousands. 

Of the important cereals, it is the weakest in 
protein, but among the strongest in carbohydrate 
and fat. The amount of silica in its ash is remark- 
ably small. In Calorie-value it is superior to wheat 
and better adapted to the winter season, though 
owing to its lower protein and mineral content, is 
not so well adapted to growing children as wheat. 

Barley. — One of the most ancient of human 
foods, highly prized by the athletes of Greece. It 
is not used in the United States to any great extent 
as a cereal food for man, though often found as 
an ingredient in soups. Of all the cereals, it has 
the highest malting power and hence is largely used 
in the brewing of malt liquors. The few barley 
flours in the market have been found to be very 
starchy and low in protein, fat and ash. This 
is owing to the rejection of the germ and outer 
envelope in the process of milling. On this account 
infant foods made from decorticated barley are 
apt to make fat babies with flabby tissues and are 
not to be commended. Preparations of the whole 
grain make an excellent, complete food. The refuse 
from brewing, if properly dried and preserved, forms 



52 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

a valuable cattle food, notwithstanding the wide- 
spread prejudices to the contrary. 

Buckwheat is one of the weakest foods of this 
class, although the highest in price. In the form of 
pancakes it constitutes a favorite American break- 
fast. The Hour is remarkable for the large per cent 
of indigestible cellulose which it contains ; this is 
also responsible for its characteristic dark color. 

Owing to its relative high price, buckwheat is the 
most extensively adulterated of all flours. Any 
white flour may be given the necessary dark color 
by the admixture of a little rye and the detection 
of such adulteration is extremely difficult by any 
chemical or microscopic test, although not beyond 
the reach of a cultivated palate. The syrup eaten 
on buckwheat cakes and the sausage generally 
eaten with it, increase both the protein and carbohy- 
drates to such an extent, that so eaten it makes a 
complete food. It is better for constipated and 
sedentary people than fine, white bread and hence 
makes a more nutritious breakfast than the usual 
coffee and roll of American restaurants. Owing 
probably to the large proportion of crude fiber, 
buckwheat frequently causes an itching rash. 

Oats is one of the strongest of grains, ranking- 
high in protein, highest in fat and minerals, but 
lowest in digestible carbohydrate. Like buckwheat, 
it contains much crude fiber and sometimes irri- 
tates sensitive skins ; it is also the most prone of 
all cereals to produce sour stomach. The proportion 
of its constituents make it a strong tissue builder 
and hence an excellent cereal food for children and 
for the repair of tissue waste in adults ; its one 
objection (which is common to all cereals) is that 
being prepared as a pultaceous mass, it offers noth- 



VEGETABLE FOODS. 53 

ing for the teeth to act upon and hence is a strong 
provocative to hasty swallowing. Its protein is 
not tenacious, like that of wheat and hence it is 
incapable of producing a light, porous or vesiculated 
bread. The unleavened oat cake contains twice as 
much tissue reconstructive and heating material as 
fine, light, white bread. Pigs fattened on oats, while 
apparently sound and well-grown, furnish a rather 
bitter and wiry pork, very different from corn-fed 
or barley-fed pigs, a difference for which there 
seems to be no good reason in the chemical con- 
stituents. 

Rye. The analyses of rye show it worthy of the 
high place among foods given to it by the Ger- 
man race. It ranks next to wheat in protein and 
equals Indian corn in carbohydrate, but these good 
qualities are more reduced by milling than is the 
case with wheat. Its protein lacks some of the 
tenacity of wheat gluten, although it greatly exceeds 
that of oats ; rye bread is therefore apt to be heavy 
and sour. It has a large use in the manufacture 
of rye whisk)-. An objection to rye as a common 
food, is its liability to be contaminated with the 
poisonous ergot. Pellagra, the leprosy of the Alps, 
once common in northern Italy, is the result of eat- 
ing rye bread contaminated with ergot. Rye is 
weaker in phosphoric acid than wheat. 

Rice. — In this cereal, starchy matters predomi- 
nate, with a corresponding weakness in protein, 
ash and fat. The granule of the rice starch is a very 
minute one and hence easily digested. Rice is dis- 
tinguished by complete absorption, leaving a very 
small residue in the bowel. It is capable of sus- 
taining the system well under the strain of severe 
muscular labor and out door life, but is ill adapted 



54 



CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 



to those who follow sedentary occupations. The 
very large silicious ash of rice is probably due to the 
grains being cleaned and polished with quartz or 
some silicious stones. 



Peas, Beans, Lentils. 

The characteristic of these leguminous foods is 
richness in protein. When the nutritive value is 
compared with the price, they are undoubtedly the 
cheapest of all foods, and on this account, may be 
called the "poor man's beef." Something less 
than two pounds of dry peas in 24 hours would 
satisfy all the demands of nutrition, but after a few 
days the palate would doubtless demand some break 
in the monotony. The composition of the three 
chief legumes are shown in the following table : 
The analyses were made in their ordinary dried 
state : 



W'.u t. Protein. 



Fat. 



Carbo- 
hydrate. 



Peas . 
Lentils 
Beans . 



10. 

B. 

12.6 



24- 

22 5 



1 . 
1 . 
1. 



62. 
59- 
59- 



Ash. 



Calories 
in a Pound. 



3- 
5-8 



1655 
1620 
1605 



This shows the high rank of these excellent and 
economical foods. Lentils are among the most 
highly nitrogenous of foods. A Hindoo proverb 
says : il Rice is good but lentils are my life." Their 
ash is large and rich in potash, phosphorus and 
iron. They contain less sulphur than either beans 
or peas and hence are the least inclined of the three 
to cause rlatulenev. Beans contain the most sul- 



VEGETABLE FOODS. 55 

phur and are the most flatulent. The protein of 
vegetables is the most difficult of their constituents 
to absorb and in this respect lentils again rank the 
highest. About 10 per cent of the protein of lentils 
is wasted, while peas lose from 10 to 15 per cent 
and beans 25 or 30. It is to be hoped that the 
above considerations will gradually bring lentils into 
more general use as a nutritious and economical 
article of daily food. 

Potatoes. 

This is one of our standard vegetables, chiefly 
valuable on account of its carbohydrate ; the 
amount of fat is inconsiderable, about 1 per cent. 
Protein is also very weakly represented. It is there- 
fore, not a complete or well-balanced food, like 
wheat or lentils, but they form a cheap and agree- 
able dish, supplying carbohydrate abundantly, as 
a balance to the meat that is usually eaten with 
them. If one were to depend upon potatoes alone 
for food, it would require a very large amount, 
something over 22 pounds, to supply the 120 grams 
(four ounces) of protein demanded by the standard 
dietaries of Voit and Atwater. These standards 
are undoubtedly too high as has been already 
pointed out, and if any one was so situated as to 
be restricted to a potato diet, we would advise 
a no larger consumption than four pounds. This 
would avoid the immense over-supply of carbo- 
hydrate which 22 pounds would involve, and would 
undoubtedly maintain the physical strength for a 
long time. The most economical method of cooking 
potatoes is to boil them in their skins. Boiled 
potatoes contain 75 per cent water, 2.5 protein, .1 
fat, 20. carbohvdrate. I. ash, and have a fuel value 



-,:' > 



CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 



of 440 Calories to the pound. If potatoes are peeled, 
put into cold water and gradually brought to a boil, 
the loss of nutrient is considerable. One bushel 
boiled in this way would lose an amount of nutri- 
tious matter, equivalent to one pound of lean steak. 
Potatoes contain a small amount of potassium 
citrate which adds to their antiscorbutic qualities. 
(See Note V.) 

Tcrnips. 

Turnip is a vegetable of weak nutrient power, but 
one for which many people have a decided liking. 
The proportion of water, as is the case with many 
vegetables is surprisingly large. Turnips, cabbage, 
tomato, spinach and many other such foods, 
although firm, solid, bodies contain more water than 
milk, which is a mobile liquid. 

It will probably be a surprise to most people to 
learn that turnip contains neither starch nor sugar. 
The 8 per cent of carbohydrate present is in the 
form of pectose. There is 89. per cent water 1.3 
per cent protein and .8 per cent minerals. Fuel 
value of one pound is 185 Calories. 

The flavor of turnips is peculiar and highly 
esteemed by many people. As they contain little 
that would add sugar to the urine, they form a 
valuable food for diabetics, to a certain extent tak- 
ing the place of potatoes. 

Cabbage. 

Cabbage is a favorite vegetable with many people, 
especially those of the German race. It contains 
over 90 per cent water, about 2. of protein, .3 of 
fat, 6. of carbohydrate and 1.5 of ash, fuel value of 



VEGETABLE FOODS. 57 

a pound is 145 Calories. Sliced, raw and fortified 
with egg and vinegar dressing, is the most nutri- 
tious and digestible form in which cabbage can be 
eaten, for boiling not only removes a considerable 
proportion of its already small percentage of nutri- 
ents but also greatly prolongs the time required for 
digestion. The fermented preparation known as 
Sauerkraut is slightly less nutritious, its fuel value 
equalling 125 Calories per pound. 

Tomatoes. 

Tomato is another favorite food in America, 
though little used in the old country. Though 
known as an ornamental plant for centuries, it has 
been used as a food for only about sixty years ; at 
the present time it is one of the most highly prized 
articles of food ; millions of cans of the preserved 
fruit are eaten annually. It contains 94 per cent 
water, 1. of protein, .5 of fat, 4. of carbohydrate 
and .5 of ash. The fuel value of a pound is only 
105 Calories. The acidity is due to citric acid, the 
acid of lemons and oranges. Cucumbers, carrots, 
spinach, belong to the same class. The latter is 
particularly rich in iron, and with radishes and 
asparagus contain a considerable amount of lime. 
They are valuable, notwithstanding the small 
amounts of nutrients in them, on account of their 
antiscorbutic and laxative properties ; the rela- 
tively large per cent of minerals and free acid 
which they contain, makes them particularly grate- 
ful in hot weather, when acid perspiration is free. 



5$ CHEMISTRY OP FOODS. 

Onions. 

The peculiar, strong flavor of onions, produces 
both friends and enemies. Many are extremely 
fond of them, and many more are unable to eat 
any dish containing them. In addition to the usual 
constituents of green vegetables, they contain a 
volatile, organic sulphur compound, to which they 
owe their odor and taste. 

They have a somewhat soothing effect, and when 
taken at dinner, generally conduce to an after-din- 
ner nap. 

They also possess laxative properties upon many 
people. They impart a peculiar odor to the excre- 
tions, and increase the volume of urine. Eaten 
raw they frequently ameliorate and occasionally cut 
short an oncoming attack of coryza. (Note VI.) 

Fruits. 

Judged strictly from a chemical standpoint, fruits 
would be of little importance as food, owing to their 
low content of protein and fat. But judged from 
the delight which they afford the palate, from the 
eagerness with which the unspoiled appetite of chil- 
dren welcome them and the benefit which the 
encumbered system of heavy eaters derive from 
them, they would seem the most important of human 
foods. In truth, fruits are not to be judged so 
much by their chemical constituents as by the evi- 
dence of mankind in their favor. They contain 
from 85 to 92 per cent of water, protein .3 to 1.5, 
fat .1 to 3., carbohydrate 2 to 15., ash .2 to 1.. free 
acid .5 to 7. They diminish the alkalescence of the 
blood and the acidity of the urine and possess use- 
ful laxative and antiscorbutic properties. 



FRUITS. 



59 



Notwithstanding the small amount of nutrients 
in this class of food there are people who live exclu- 
sively upon fruits and nuts, thus combining the 
most dilute and the most concentrated of foods. 
Some investigations as to the result of an exclusive 
fruit and nut diet were made by Jaffa of the 
University of California. The subjects were 
a family of two women and three children who had 
subsisted for from five to seven years upon fruits 
and nuts alone. It was their habit to eat two meals 
a day, one at 10 130 a. m., consisting of nuts and 
fruits. The second at 5 p. m.. consisting of fruit, 
olive oil and honey. The only food used besides 
fruits and nuts was olive oil, honey, celery and a 
small amount of prepared cereal. 

The first subject was a woman 33 years of age, 
five feet in height, weight 90 pounds. Experiments 
lasted 20 days. The results were : 



Cost Per 

Dav. 


Protein. 


Fat. 


Carbo- 
hydrate. 


Crude 

Fiber. 1 Calories. 


23.7 cts. 


33 
(1 oz.) 


59- 
(2 ozs.) 


no 


1 
40 1200 

(iK ozs )| 



The standard dietaries for a woman at light 
labor calls for 90 (three ounces) protein and 2,500 
Calories. 

The second subject was a woman 30 years old. 
T04 pounds. Experiments lasted 25 days. The 
results were : 



Cost Per 
Day. 


Protein. 


Fat. 
57 


Carbo- 
hydrate. 


Crude 
Fiber. 


Calories. 


17.2 Cts. 


25 (I oz.) 


72. 


27 


I .040 



6o 



CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 



This small amount of food seemed sufficient for 
her needs. 

The third subject, a girl of 13, weighing 75 l / 2 
pounds consumed 



Cost. 


Protein. 


Fat. 


Carbo- 
hydrate. 


Crude 
Fiber. 


Calories. 


19. cts. 


26. 


52. 


Ill . 


46. 


1235 



Standard dietaries call for a child of 13, 90. 
( three ounces) protein and 2,450 Calories. She had 
the appearance of a well-fed child in excellent 
health and spirits. 

The brother of the last subject gave about the 
same results, but gained two pounds weight in 22 
days. 

The fifth subject was a girl of six, weighing 
$o l / 2 pounds. She had been very delicate as a babv 
and did not begin to thrive until a decoction of figs 
was added to the milk eaten. She had never eaten 
anything outside of fruits and nuts, except olive 
oil, honey and a small quantity of green vegetables. 
She frequently craved lettuce. She was 10 pounds 
under the average weight and seven inches less 
than the average height. Her father was a small 
man and her mother and grandmother much below 
the average height and weight. (See Note VII.) 
During the study of 25 days she gained 2 l / 2 pounds. 

Her diet contained much less protein than the 
standard dietaries require for a child of one to 
two years, yet she seemed perfectly well and was 
exceedingly active. 

If these results are compared with those obtained 
by Chittenden, instead of the old and erroneous Voit 
standard, they become much less striking and sim- 



FRUITS. 



6i 



ply confirm the opinion that Chittenden is nearer 
right than Voit. 

The two adults experimented upon above had 
lived upon this diet for seven years and they claimed 
to be in better health and capable of more work 
than they ever were before. The three children 
had the appearance of health and strength, they ran, 
jumped and played all day, though below the aver- 
age in height and weight. When it is considered 
that the limited means of the family prevented them 
from eating as much as they would Tike to have, and 
that they gained in weight during the tests when 
given as much of their peculiar food as they wanted, 
it seems that their undersize was due to lack of 
food rather than to its character. 

They were unusually free from colds and other 
complaints of children. The analyses of the feces 
and urine in one of these subjects showed that 
there was very complete absorption and that not* 
withstanding the fall of the protein below the usual 
standards, there was a daily gain of 13.7 grams 
(nearly y 2 ounce) in body weight. 

Fruits are relatively rich in minerals. The fol- 
lowing list shows the average results of several 
analyses. The total ash contained the following- 
proportions of the important elements : 





Potassium. 


Sodium. 


Calcium. 


Mag- 
nesium. 


Iron. 


Prunes. .. 


63. 


2.6 


4.6 


5- 


2.7 


Apricots . 


59. 


10. 


3 


3 




1.6 


Oranges.. 


48. 


2.5 


22. 


5 




•97 


Lemons. . 


48. 


i-7 


29. 


4 




•43 


Apples. . . 


35- 


26. 


4- 


9 




1.4 


Pears. . . . 


54- 


8. 


7- 


5 




1. 


Peaches .. 


27. 


.2 


8. 


17 




•55 



I 2 CHEMISTRY 01 DS 

The total ash of fruits ranges from I per cent 
in cherries to .2 per cent in apples, cranberries and 
huckleberries. The above refers to the constituents 

of this ash. These minerals are in combination with 
organic acids, and as a rule there is more than 
enough of the latter to neutralize the bases, so that 

the overplus, present as free acid, gives rise to the 
agreeable tartness so much esteemed in fruit. The 
free acid ranges from .1 per cent in pears to 7 per 
cent in lemons. 

Grapes. — On account of their importance as the 
source of wine and because the "Grape Cure" is 
still somewhat in vogue, this fruit deserves brief 
mention. Their composition from an average of 
live analyses is as follows : 



Water. Protein. Fat Cjrtj^ NffiESd. 

■ ! ! 1 ' 



1.3 1.6 19.2 .5 450. 

The grape cure is properly an exclusive diet of 
grapes, although it is often marred bv the addition 
of other foods. The patient should do his own pick- 
ing in the open air ; the skins, pulp and seed should 
all be eaten and thorough insalivation should be 
secured by careful mastication. The absurd rule of 
eating eight pounds in 24 hours usually given should 
be disregarded ; if eaten slowly according to one's 
appetite, probably four pounds would never be 
exceeded. The result is excellent in heavy eaters 
with abdominal plethora and too much adipose. A 
laxative and diuretic effect is noticed and none oi 
the disagreeable symptoms noticed under the milk 
cure occur. Grape juice unfermented is an agree- 



NUTS. 



63 



able, sub-acid beverage, containing some nourish- 
ment. It is very prone to fermentation and on this 
account often disagrees with weak digestions. 

Nuts. 

Nuts are among the most concentrated of foods, 
thus presenting a strong contrast to the water-con- 
taining fruits. Their richness in oil, carbohydrates 
and protein makes them extremely nutritious, but 
the very concentrated form in which they occur, also 
renders them hard to digest. 

The Calorie value runs high ; almonds, cocoanuts 
and walnuts run up to plus 3,000 and peanuts over 
2,500. 

The composition of some of the principal nuts is 
shown in the following : 





Shells. 


Water. 


Protein. 


Fat. 


Carbo- 
hydrate 


Ash. 


Calories 
Per Pound. 


Peanuts .. 
Chestnuts 
Cocoanuts 
California 


24- 
16. 

37- 


9- 

45- 
3-5 


25.8 
6.2 
63 


38 6 

5 4 
57-4 


24.4 

42- 

3i-5 


2. 
1 3 
i-3 


2.560 
1. 125 
3 125 


Walnuts. 
Filberts.. 


52. 


2.5 
3-7 


27.6 
15.6 


563 
65. 


11. 7 
13 


1.9 

2-4 


3- 105 
3-296 


Almonds.. 


45- 


48 


21. 


54 9 


17-3 


2 ' 


3 030 



The investigations of Jaffa, mentioned above, 
show that by means of nuts, in combination with 
fruits and a few simple vegetable productions, health 
and contentment may be maintained, without the use 
of cookery at all. These facts should commend 
themselves to those who are thinking of the simple 
life. 



64 CHEMISTRY OF POODS. 

Coffee, Tea and Cocoa. 

It is not the nutritive value of these beverages 
that makes them so important, but rather their 
peculiar exhilarating and restorative effects, which 
are so striking, that they may be regarded as quasi- 
medicinal as well as dietetic. Coffee, tea and cocoa 
all owe their peculiar virtues to alkaloids ; in the two 
former, the effect is striking, but in the latter, it is 
masked by the heavy nutritious fat and carbohydrate 
which cocoa contains. The three alkaloids, caffeine, 
theine and theobromine, belonging to the three 
beverages respectively, have a certain relation to 
each other and to the purin bodies. 

The purin bodies are nitrogenous compounds 
found in small quantities in almost all the tissues 
of the body. They are grouped around a hypo- 
thetical body called purin. which serves, so to speak, 
as a core for the others. Purin is CsN*H*. Uric 
acid is the most highly oxidized member of the 
series. The relation is here shown : 

l>ic acid O X> H* 0» 

Xanthin C N* H« O. 

Hypoxanthin or Sarcin. . . . G X» H* O 

These exist in all flesh foods : caffeine and 
theine, identical with each other, are tri-methyl- 
xanthine, that is, xanthine with three of its four 
hydrogen atoms cast out and replaced by methyl 

(CHa). 

Theobromine is di-methyl-xanthine, that is, 
xanthine with two of its four hydrogen atoms cast 
out and replaced by methyl (CHs). 

These beverages, therefore, belong to the uric 



COFFEE, ETC. 65 

acid-producing foods and should be used with judg- 
ment and not abused. 

Coffee is a pure mental stimulant ; it enables one 
to use all one's mental powers to the greatest ad- 
vantage and is therefore of especial use to lecturers, 
orators, writers and brain workers in general. Tea 
is a most potent restorative after physical fatigue or 
combined muscle and nerve exhaustion. Both are 
of most use to the aged, because they retard the 
waste of tissue, which is sure to occur in the declin- 
ing years of life. 

Among the disadvantages are a slight retarding 
effect upon peptic digestion and a tendency to sleep- 
lessness. Idiosyncracy plays an important role in 
tea and coffee drinking. They agree with some 
and not with others without any rational explana- 
tion. I have known coffee to produce decided 
urethral irritation in one individual. Tea in excess 
produces a fine tremulation of the hands. 

Children should never be permitted to touch 
either coffee or tea, owing to the stimulating action 
which is deleterious to their tender and excitable 
nervous systems. Cocoa, on account of its richness 
in nutrients, makes an excellent corroborant, warm 
beverage for them ; it is especially appropriate in 
cold weather after exposure. 

Made in the Spanish fashion, very rich and sweet, 
it is apt to produce headaches, owing to the 
afflux of blood to the liver, necessary for its diges- 
tion. Drinking copiously of water immediately 
after taking chocolate will prevent this. It is more 
rational, however, to dilute it before rather than 
after drinking. 



66 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

Alcohol. 

The use of alcohol as a food has been a subject 
of heated controversy for several generations. 
Some have claimed that it is a valuable food ; others 
have absolutely denied that it is a food at all, and 
both sides have been maintained with much acri- 
mony. Atwater's recent experiments, made with 
very elaborate and accurate apparatus, show results 
that really favor the cause of temperance and the 
tenets of most temperance workers, but they have 
been stated in such a way as to appear unfavorable. 

Atwater's conclusions may be summed up thus : 

Alcohol in small quantity slightly increases the 
digestibility of protein and is without any effect 
upon the digestion of fat and carbohydrates. Alco- 
hol in small quantity is more completely oxidized in 
the body than are the nutrients of ordinary food. 

Alcohol protects fats and protein from oxidation 
by furnishing the body the needed carbon. This 
only applies to moderate quantities. These points 
may be freely admitted by temperance advocates 
without the slightest injury to their cause, for, as 
At water admits, the action of alcohol as a poison 
is so potent that in any quantity it reverses the 
above conclusions. He says: "Alcohol appears also 
to exert at times a special action as a drug. In 
large quantities it is positively toxic and may retard 
or even prevent metabolism in general and protein 
metabolism in particular." 

As to alcohol being a source of muscular energy, 
he goes on to say: "Even with the small doses of 
these experiments there were indications that the 
subjects worked to slightly better advantage with 



ALCOHOL. 67 

the ordinary rations than with alcohol. The results 
of practical tests on a large scale elsewhere coincide 
with those of general observation in implying that 
the use of any considerable quantity of alcoholic 
beverages as a part of the diet for muscular labor is 
generally of doubtful value and often positively in- 
jurious." This is saying in a very hesitating, halt- 
ing way, that alcohol is injurious rather than bene 
ficial when taken in any quantity. 

In regard to mental operations, Abel summarizes 
the effect of alcohol about as follows : 

"Alcohol produces a tendency to premature and 
erroneous reactions ; the reactor often thinks that he 
is reacting more quickly than usual when he is in 
reality slower. It lessens the power of clear and 
consecutive reasoning; in many respects its action 
on the higher functions resembles that of fatigue of 
the brain." 

According to these two investigators, the first of 
whom excited the ire of temperance advocates, 
there is not much to be said in favor of alcohol as 
a food. There is no reason to regard it of value 
either as a muscle food or as a heat producer. 
When the blood is collected or congested into the 
internal organs and there is danger of a chill, alco- 
hol will quickly bring the blood to the surface and 
equalize the temperature. 

It is therefore hardly worthy of consideration 
as a food; because although a limited amount doc- 
decompose in the body and yield heat and energy, 
like ordinary non-nitrogenous food, yet its drug 
action is so evident and so potent that it far over- 
balances the nutritive value. It expands the capil- 
laries, it brings the blood from the internal organs 



68 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

to the surface, and without adding much heat to 
the total stock, it makes available what heat one 
has. Thus the use of alcohol at the proper time and 
in the proper dose may stop an incipient chill, may 
ward oft* an oncoming pneumonia, or may postpone 
the paralyzing effect of cold for a time until shelter 
can be obtained. Alcohol comes to us as a beverage 
in various forms such as wine, distilled spirit and 
malt liquor. 

Wines. — Wines vary in alcoholic strength from 
the 3 per cent of light wines to the 25 per cent of 
port. Whenever the alcoholic strength of any 
wine exceeds 13 per cent, spirit has been added to it. 
A naturally fermented liquor cannot contain more 
than that amount, for as soon as the alcoholic 
strength readies 13 per cent the process of fer- 
mentation stops. 

Wines are classified according to color as red or 
white, and according to character as generous, dry, 
sweet, sour, rough, light or sparkling. A generous 
wine is one with plenty of spirit ; it is sometimes 
called spiritous wine — port wine, for instance. A 
dry wine is one in which the sugar of the juice has 
been completely fermented and turned into spirit 
and carbonic oxide. Sauterne is an example. A 
sweet wine is one which still contains some unfer- 
mented sugar. Tokay or Somlauer are instances. 
A rough wine is generally a dry wine in which a 
little tannin from the grapes has imparted an astrim 
gent or austere taste. 

A sparkling wine is one which contains some car- 
bonic oxide dissolved, giving it an effervescent or 
sparkling appearance when opened to the air. 

All wines contain some free acid ; when a suffi- 



ALCOHOL. 69 

cient amount of free acid is present to affect the 
taste decidedly it is called a sour wine. Some of 
these qualities may be conjoined in a single wine : 
thus sherry is both generous and dry ; claret may be 
both dry and rough ; tokay is sweet and generous. 
Opposites, such as dry and sweet, however, can- 
not be combined in the same wine, although free 
acid and sugar may be conjoined as in champagne. 

Light wines do not improve after two or three 
years no matter how long they are kept. Strong- 
wines with plenty of spirit and some free acid im- 
prove almost indefinitely by the very gradual forma- 
tion of aromatic ethers from a reaction between the 
spirit and the acids. These form the so-called bou- 
quet of wines. Old wine may be worth its weight 
in gold in some cases of syncope after or during 
diphtheria, or in the asthenia of old age, or of 
severe exhausting disease. The minute quantity of 
the ethers mounts immediately to the brain and 
nervous system and awakens new life before the 
alcohol has had time to be absorbed. 

Children should have no wine as a beverage ; to 
them it should be a medicinal stimulant only. Adults 
in full health have seldom any need of it. It is a 
luxury, a gratification, an expander of the heart, 
to be used at feasts and in company. "Every inor- 
dinate cup is unblessed." 

To the aged, a dry, sound wine is a very useful 
medicinal agent for the waning powers, and there 
can be no objection to those in the decline of life 
making use of it if found to agree. 

Tokay and somlauer wines (they are practically 
the same) have a special stimulating action upon 
the generative powers, a feature which may find 



;o CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

some explanation in the large proportion of phos- 
phorus in their ash. 

Spirits or distilled liquors contain from 40 to 60 
per cent of alcohol ; they have little or no free acid 
in them. Whisky, the favorite stimulant of the 
Americans, is made from grains of various kinds. 
Irish whisky often from potatoes. Gin is prac- 
tically the same as whisky in alcoholic strength and 
origin, but has a decided and peculiar flavor as 
well as a considerable diuretic action from the oil 
of juniperus communis. This is imparted to it 
either by adding juniper berries to the mash or the 
volatile oil of juniper to the distilled liquor. Rum 
is a spirit of 50 to 55 per cent strength, made from 
fermented molasses. Brandy, a spirit made from 
wine and the marc of grapes. 

None of these liquors should ever be admin- 
istered undiluted. Largely diluted with water, 
they form a valuable, neutral stimulant, but owinsr 
to the high per cent of spirit they produce the 
most disastrous consequences when habitually used 
to excess. Owing to the absence of acids, distilled 
liquors are less deleterious to high livers than port 
wine or than the sour wines of Germany. 

.Malt Beverages. — Malt liquors contain from 
2 to 6 per cent of alcohol and have also the nutri- 
tive qualities of the soluble principles of malt. 
These principles are carbohydrates. The maltose 
and the hops or other bitters so overbalance the 
slight proportion of alcohol that malt beverages 
can hardly be called true stimulants. 

All malt liquors have an acid reaction, which is 
due to lactic acid. There is no better formula for 
a miserable and painful old age than a rich nitro- 



BUTTERINE. 71 

genous diet and plenty of malt liquor. If a 
wretched old age is not attained it is only because 
the malt devotee dies before old age is attained. 
The substitution of wine for the malt is not any 
better. In the one case lactic acid retards the 
elimination of the nitrogenous debris, in the other 
tartaric acid. The use of pure malt liquors in 
moderation is an excellent soother for an irritable 
heart, for nervous, distracted states of mind and 
for erythristic conditions in general. The qualities 
of the three kinds of alcoholic beverages may be 
summarized as follows 

Distilled liquors are pure stimulants, free from 
acidity. 

Wine is complex, nourishing, stimulating and 
corroborant. 

Malt liquors are soothing, calming, nourishing, 
only slightly stimulating. 

All of these are two-edged swords and capable 
of causing destructive degenerations, both psychical 
and histological, when abused by excesses. 

Butter and Butterine. 

Butter is the most digestible of fats, and the 
most delicate and delicious of them in flavor. Its 
per cent of fatty acids, especially the volatile fatty 
acids, is so large that it can thereby be distin- 
guished from all other fats. In those subject to 
acute gastritis, with headache and vomiting of 
butyric acid-smelling vomitus, butter should be 
abstained from for a time. The usual cause of 
such attacks is overeating. Butterine is one of the 
wonders of art and shows how much more pecu- 
niary interest will do in the development of a 



12 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

product than science alone. With the possible 
exception of rice, which is scoured and polished 
and generally stored in bags, butterine is the 
cleanest and purest food in the world. It is made 
from the olein (oleo oil) of beef suet and neutral 
lard. The latter is made from the layers of fat of 
the pig, frozen immediately after removal, to 
quickly eradicate the animal heat, which is provo- 
cative of incipient decomposition and the cause of 
lard odors. It is then melted by steam coils in 
huge vats and some shovelfuls of pure salt skill- 
fully scattered over it. Salt is entirely insoluble 
in fat, but the particles descending carry with it 
all shreds and particles of membrane, tissue and 
blood, leaving it clear. This is then pumped or 
syphoned off through fine sieves, and forms the 
product known as neutral lard. 

Oleo oil and neutral lard, with a small admix- 
ture of fresh grass butter, constitutes butterine, a 
clean, wholesome food, which none need be afraid 
of usinsr on the score of health. 



DIET FOR SPECIAL CONDITIONS. 
Food for Infants. 

No food for infants has been found to equal 
mothers' milk, and this has not been for any lack 
of trying to find substitutes for it. Dr. Brouzet, a 
celebrated French physician, thought so poorly of 
mothers that he wanted the state to interfere and 
forbid women from suckling their children, as the 
best means of preventing disease and immorality, 
and Van Helmont, the leading chemist and physi- 
cian of his age, seemed to attribute all our dis- 
eases, if not our sins, to the inborn propensity for 
milk. He proposed to substitute bread boiled in 
beer and honey for milk in the rearing of infants. 
These are shining examples of that scientific ar- 
rogance which is so prone to inflict its latest opin- 
ion upon mankind as unerring truth. 

Mothers' milk is the only safe, natural and per- 
fect food for infants ; there is and there can be no 
perfect substitute for it. It is complete in its 
composition and perfectly adapted by nature to the 
growth and nourishment of the new-born. Ceme- 
teries have been filled because, being ignorant of 
this fundamental truth of nutrition, people have 
tried to substitute something "just as good" or 
"better" for the food designed by nature for that 
purpose. The vast majority of deaths in children 
of one year and under is due to improper food 

73 



74 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

substituted for mothers' milk by ignorant and care- 
less parents. 

So large is the mortality of bottle-fed babies 
that one can come to no other conclusion than 
that the refusal or neglect of a mother to nurse 
her child, for any but the most necessary reasons, 
is little short of criminal. Xo considerations of 
personal convenience nor of retaining the figure. 
nor of the requirements of fashionable life, render 
neglect of this duty, in the slightest degree, ex- 
cusable. 

The following reasons for artificial feeding are 
legitimate : When the mother has no flow of milk 
and cannot be made to have any : when the child 
does not thrive and cannot be made to thrive by 
intelligent effort to improve the quality of the 
milk ; when the mother is affected by some serious 
chronic disease ( Bright 's disease, epilepsy, tuber- 
culosis, etc.") or when pregnancy occurs during 
nursing. Under these circumstances there must 
of necessity he found some substitute for the natu- 
ral food, and it becomes our duty to find the best 
substitute. The first thing is to avoid being taken 
in by the alluring advertisements of proprietary 
foods ; most of these foods are merely modifiers of 
cows' milk and incapable alone of supplying suffi- 
cient nourishment for a growing child. They are 
valueless without cows' milk and they add nothing 
to cows' milk that cannot be added at the home at 
one-fourth the cost. Every physician of moderate 
experience meets numbers of cases of scurvv. 
rickets and other forms of infantile ill health, 
caused by too great dependence upon some of 
these advertised foods. 



FOOD FOR INFANTS. 75 

It is unfortunate that the money-making pro- 
pensity of mankind has taken hold of this subject, 
and, by assiduous advertising, forced upon the at- 
tention of the public these proprietary foods as 
substitutes for mothers' milk. One of the bad 
results of this is that the public has been falsely 
educated to regard the substitution of patent 
preparations for the natural nourishment as rather 
a good thing for the baby, or at least a matter of 
indifference. 

Of the many preparations upon the market, some 
are moderately good, some are bad and most are 
more or less fraudulent, in that they pretend to be 
the main nourishment of the infant, when they are 
really only modifiers of cows' milk. They all agree 
in being expensive, and not one is as good an 
infant food as can be made cheaply in the home. 
The chief faults of the proprietary foods, besides 
their cost, is deficiency in fat and a too great quan- 
tity of sugar or starch. 

Cows' milk, properly diluted and modified, is the 
best substitute for nursing. The differences be- 
tween human milk and that of the cow are as 
follows : 

Human milk is alkaline, cows' milk is neutral or 
acid, human milk contains half as much protein 
as cows' milk, and its protein is about equally 
divided between the kind that is coagulable by heat 
and the kind that is coagulable by acids. In the 
milk of the cow there is one part of the first kind 
to seven parts of the latter. This makes a great 
difference in the character of the coagula of the 
two ; cows' milk forms large, solid, relatively in- 
digestible curds ; human milk coagulates in fine, 



76 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

easily digested flocculi. The composition of the 
two milks is here shown side by side: 

Human Milk. Cows' Milk. 

Protein 2 per cent 4 per cent 

Sugar 7 per cent 4 per cent 

Fat 4 per cent 4 per cent 

Salts 2 per cent .7 per cent 

Reaction Alkaline Neutral or acid 

This shows the differences at a glance; there is 
twice as much protein, half as much sugar, the 
same amount of fat and over three times as much 
mineral matter in cows' milk as in human milk, 
and the reaction is different. This puts in suffi- 
ciently strong light, the fact that unmodified cows' 
milk is quite unsuitable for the nourishment of 
infants; it also suggests that by a very simple 
procedure it may be made quite similar to human 
milk. 

The addition oi an equal volume of water will 
render the amount of protein just about right and 
will reduce the minerals to a nearer approximation 
to mothers' milk. Rut this also reduces the fat 
to one-half and the sugar to one-quarter what they 
ought to be. The addition of cream and sugar 
then, in proper amount to the diluted milk, would 
bring up these two important principles to the 
normal standard oi mothers' milk. From this it 
is seen that the modification of cows' milk consists 
in the addition of water, sugar and cream to that 
fluid. 

Before going into the details of modification it 
should be insisted upon that the cows' milk be 
tresh; not over 24 hours should intervene between 



FOOD FOR INFANTS. 77 

the cow and the baby. It should be from a herd 
rather than from one cow ; an average mixed herd 
is better, because more apt to be free from disease 
than Jersey, Ayrshire or Alderney cows. It should 
be clean and free from foreign odors. 

The food of the cows should be clean grains and 
grass. There is no objection to malt refuse as a 
cattle food, if it is properly dried and preserved 
and due allowance made for the fact that part of 
its carbohydrate is gone. The widespread preju- 
dice against milk from cows fed upon malt refuse 
arises from the fact that a moist, sour and decom- 
posed product is often used. 

Milk Modification. 

Milk nowadays is generally dispensed in cities 
and towns in wide-mouth, so-called quart bottles; 
they often hold one ounce less than a quart, but 
they serve a very good purpose as a convenient 
measure for the household modification of milk. 
The milk as it is received, supposedly from the 
cow, may be called 4 per cent milk, the 4 per cent 
here referring to the fat. When such a bottle is 
allowed to stand undisturbed until the cream rises 
to the top, the upper third of it contains about 10 
per cent fat and may be referred to as 10 per cent 
milk, while the upper half contains 7 per cent fat 
and may be called 7 per cent milk. The upper 
third and the upper half of such a quart bottle 
are the units used in the following formulas, and 
may be obtained either by decantation, that is, by 
carefully pouring off those parts of the contents of 
the bottles, or, more accurately, by using a small 
dipper made for the purpose and sold for a 



78 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

trifle under the name of Chapin's dipper. As the 
necessity of using- one-half and one-third of a 
bottle, and also for measuring 20 fluid ounces, con- 
tinues for some time, it is in the interests of ac- 
curacy to paste a strip of paper half an inch wide 
from the bottom of one of these bottles to the 
top, and to mark it at the one-third and one-half, 
and also at the two-thirds or 20 fluid ounce heights. 
A little melted paraffin brushed rapidly while hot 
over the paper, will prevent its being washed off, 
when the bottle is cleansed. Such a marked bottle 
can be kept for a measure. The milk is allowed 
to stand in its original container until the cream 
rises, and then it is poured or dipped off into the 
graduated bottle up to the desired mark. 

This plan of using the upper third or the upper 
half of a quart bottle, that is, 10 per cent and 7 
per cent milk, is that which Holt recommends in 
his Diseases of Infancy and Childhood, and of the 
many methods that have been devised, it is the 
most satisfactory and successful for use in the 
home. 

After it has been determined that the mother 
cannot nurse her baby, for good and sufficient 
reasons, we must select such a modified milk as is 
adapted, so far as possible, to the age and condi- 
tion of the infant. For infants of three months 
and under, upper third milk is used, according to 
the following formulas. If the child is of ordi- 
nary vigor and average size the following mixture 
may be used to start on : 

Milk sugar, 1 oz. (one rounded tablespoonful) 

Lime water, 1 oz. (two tablespoonfuls ) 

10 per cent milk, 4 oz. (eight tablespoonfuls) 



FOOD FOR INFANTS. 79 



Hot water enough to make the whole measure 
20 ounces. This will probably agree with most 
infants at this age. It is alkaline in reaction and 
contains 

2 per cent fat 

6 per cent sugar 

0.66 per cent protein. 

This is too weak to be ideal; the protein is less 
than half as much usually contained in mothers' 
milk, but owing to the inherent tendency of cows' 
milk to form large curds, this deficiency of protein 
is permitted at first. In feeble, undersized or deli- 
cate infants it is wise to begin with even a weaker 
milk, and as the digestive power grows stronger 
to increase the strength graduallv (ounce at a 
time) until it is as strong as the infant's digestion 
will bear. For such cases the protein and fat may 
he reduced one-half: 

Milk-sugar ioz. 

Lime water 1 oz. 

10 per cent milk 2 ozs. 

Hot water enough to make 20 ounces. 

The percentage composition of this is 

1 per cent fat 
6 per cent sugar 
.33 per cent protein. 

As the child grows the proportion of 10 per 
cent milk should be increased one ounce at a time. 
When the amount of fat reaches 4 per cent by 
doubling the amount of the 10 per cent milk of 
the first formula, the composition is 



S RY OF 

per cent Eat 
6.50 per cenl 

I.33 per cent protein, and with this 
the limit of use oi the 10 per cent milk is about 
reached, and the infant is probably just passing 
the fourth month of its existence. 

The sugar of milk in the 10 per cent milk is 
sufficient to bring- that constituent in the last 
formula up to 6.50 per cent. For infants over the 
third month 10 per cent milk is too weak in pro- 
tein, and the 7 per cent or upper half milk comes 
into use. If the last mixture is well borne the 
child may soon pass to the closest imitation of 
mothers' milk possible, made according to the fol- 
lowing formula : 

Milk-sugar 1 1 

Lime water 1 

- per cent milk. . . .12 ozs 24 tablespoonfuls) 
Hot water enough to make 20 ounces. 

The percentage composition of tins is 

4 per cent fat 
~ per cent sugar 

a per cent protein. 

n comparing this with the analysis of mothers' 
milk on a preceding: page it will be found to be 
".tical. 

Whichever of the various strengths be used, the 

result should be watched and further changes 

ie if necessary, according to the indications. 

Constipation usually calls for a reduction in the 

protein and an increase in the fat. one or both. If 

ear in the Stc As the condition may be 



FOOD FOR INF INTS Si 

removed by going back temporarily to the use of 
upper third milk. If vomiting occurs soon after 
feeding, it may be due to too rapid feeding, or to 
too large a meal being given, or to an old, foul, 
ill smelling nipple, bul if mine of these are al fault 
the cause may be put down to too great strength 
of fat or protein, one or both, and the dilution may 
be increased. 

The formula given above, thai most closely 
n embles mothers' milk, is not the besl to begin 
on; it docs resemble the natural producl in com 
position, but owing to the inherent indigestibility 
of the casein of cows' -milk, it is better to begin 
with a weaker preparation and then increase the 
strength as time goes on. It is much easier to 
increase the richness of the mixture than it is to 
lessen it after the baby's stomach has been upset 
by an attack of indigestion. Increase the strength 
of the mixture gradually, 1>\ an ounce at a time 
is a good rule. 

Put just enough food in the bottle for a single 
feeding; if any is left, throw it away; never offer it 
the second time to the baby. This last rule should 
be looked after sharply by the- physician, as it is 
often trangressed by the mother or nurse. 

[ntervals. — The interval between feedings 
should be carefully regulated; it is often difficult to 
get some mothers and nurses to observe regularity 
in this respect. Crying and fretting is not a suffi- 
cient reason to break the rule and feed between 
the proper intervals. 

From birth up to about the third month, there 
should be two hours' interval between the meals 
during- the daytime and one feeding - , or at most 



82 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

two, during the night ( ro p. m. to 5 a. m.), or 
ten feedings during the 24 hours. 

Toward the close of the third month, increase 
the interval to three hours and reduce the number 
of meals to eight in 24 hours. A gradual increase 
in the interval and decrease in the number of feed- 
ings should be observed until the end of the first 
year, when the ideal for most babies would be five 
hours' interval. The amount of food consumed at 
eaeli meal must of necessity vary with different 
children, and exact quantities, as recommended in 
many books, cannot be observed. In the early days 
of life small infants will be satisfied with one 
ounce or less; larger ones require one and a half 
ounces or more. At the end of the first year a 
healthy baby will take from eight to ten ounces al 
a single feeding. The gradual increase in the 
weight of the child after the second week is the 
best test of success. Loss of weisrht is a dangrer 
signal, but quiet sleep is a very favorable sign. 

In exceptionally delicate or small babies, al- 
though size and delicacy are not entirely inter- 
changeable terms, milk sugar makes a better 
sweetener than cane sugar ; it requires about 
double the amount of milk sugar to produce the 
same taste. For difficult babies, babies with 
idiosyncrasies, babies that have bad nights and do 
not gain as steadily as is desirable, magic results 
are often gained by substituting thin oatmeal or 
barley gruel in place of water in the above formulas. 

One heaping teaspoon ful of rolled or granulated 
oats boiled in a quart of water, in an uncovered 
vessel, until reduced by evaporation to the measure 
of twenty ounces, makes a thin gruel, when 



NURSING MOTHERS. 83 

strained, that serves to overcome the difficulties of 
some of these difficult infants. 

Sterilization of Milk. — Fresh, clean milk does 
not need sterilizing ; as before said, the sterilization 
of milk detracts from its nourishing power. On 
the other hand, sterilized milk is better and safer 
than dirty or contaminated milk. Therefore, if for 
any reason fresh, clean milk cannot be obtained, or 
if the milk is under suspicion, the process of 
sterilization should be used until milk above sus- 
picion can be obtained. A double boiler, such as 
is used for cooking- oatmeal, is convenient. Bring 
the outside water to a boil and then take off the 
stove, but allow to stand for 20 minutes. Then 
put milk in ice chest, or in a cool place, so that it 
will cool as rapidly as possible. Put into thor- 
oughly clean bottles, filling them full, and cork. 

Nursing Mothers. 

The milk of the nursing woman is sedulously 
protected by nature against extraneous influences. 
It is the last of the organic fluids to be changed by 
irregularities of diet or by drug effects. Thus, an 
increase in the amount of fluid drank increases 
the urine, but not the milk ; a decrease in the 
amount of fluid affects all other secretions first and 
the supply of milk last. During an attack of 
jaundice, every fluid and tissue of the body is 
affected before the milk shows any contamination 
with bile. It was noticed that during the siege of 
Paris, women continued to nurse their children, al- 
though almost starved to death themselves. Alco- 
holic beverages do not affect the milk directly, for 
distillation of the milk after a considerable con- 



84 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

sumption of spirit showed no alcoholic contamina- 
tion. 

In the light of these facts, we may acknowledge 
our inability to produce any immediate change in 
the character of the milk by a change of diet, and 
look with suspicion upon any proprietary articles 
that claim to do so. They also teach us not to 
jump too readily to the conclusion that every 
attack of infantile colic is due to some mistake 
in the mother's diet. As exceptions to the gen- 
eral rule it may be noted that mercurial prepara- 
tions and senna are drugs that do affect the milk ; 
the first appears rapidly in the milk after a few 
doses and produces mercurial symptoms in the 
infant, and the second imparts its laxative proper- 
ties to the milk in a mild degree. It is a safe rule 
for a nursing mother to avoid all drugs, especially 
those of a metallic character. Violent and depress- 
ing emotions, such as anger and chagrin, more 
profoundly affect the milk than food or drugs. A 
violent attack of jealousy is probably the most 
baleful in its effect. The appearance of the menses 
during nursing is occasionally followed by very 
serious illness in the infant, but this is not gener- 
ally the case. 

Being thus prevented by nature from producing 
any direct and immediate effect upon the milk- 
by diet, we are limited to the general principle of 
keeping the mother in good health and supplying 
her abundantly with the proper elements for the 
needs of the growing child. 

The proportion of protein in milk is in excess 
of the carbohydrates, and we may take this as a 
hint to increase the relative proportion of protein 



NURSING MOTHERS. 85 

in the diet of the mother over what is consumed 
by her when not nursing. If the rules on page 
2% are followed, the desires of the woman will 
become a safe guide ; in lieu of that, the follow- 
ing hints will be of service : 

1 st. Any diet that agrees with the mother and 
keeps her in good health will cause the infant to 
thrive. 

2d. A little extra protein and fat are needed ; 
therefore, fresh cows' milk is an excellent diet 
for the mother. One pint extra, beyond her ordi- 
nary food will furnish all the elements needed. 
Meat, with some of the tender fat, will do the same 
thing for those who do not like milk. A saucer of 
oatmeal with cream, or a pint of oatmeal gruel, in 
addition to the ordinary food, will serve very well. 

3d. The mistake of overeating and lack of ex- 
ercise is to be avoided. Indolence and heavy eat- 
ing decrease the flow of milk and deteriorate its 
quality. Exercise and fresh air are extremely im- 
portant to nursing women. 

It is a very common opinion that certain arti- 
cles of food are invariably inimical to the child and 
are to be abstained from, no matter how much the 
mother craves them. An arbitrary rule of this 
kind is fault}'. Some individualization of cases is 
needed before the good or bad effects of certain 
articles are settled. Foods that have come under 
the cloud of popular suspicion at this period are 
turnips, beans, lettuce, fruit, tomatoes and green, 
fresh vegetables generally. They should not be 
condemned wholesale, but if the mother desires 
some one of them it should be tried intelligently 
and the result will in all probability be very 
beneficial. 



86 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

The foundation of much trouble and ill-health 
is laid in the few hours that intervene between the 
birth of the child and the arrival of the milk, by 
injudicious feeding and ignorant management. The 
first necessity for a prosperous career as an infant 
is warmth. The hands and feet of the baby should 
not be allowed to become cold. Elaborate washing 
and dressing in fine clothes must all give way 
before this imperative requirement of warmth. 
The second necessity is that the first thing that 
enters the baby's mouth must be from the breast 
of the mother, and from nowhere else. The 
erroneous idea that the baby must have nourish- 
ment before the milk comes to the mother's breast 
is responsible for much gastric disorder and sub- 
sequent colic. The infant arrives upon the scene 
with a sufficient store of nutritive material in his 
or her system, to last perfect until such time as 
the milk arrives, usually 48 to J 2 hours. The 
small amount of colostrum which the first efforts at 
sucking draw forth will help greatly in keeping 
tlie infant contented until the full flow of milk 
arrives. 

( ieoasionally a few drops of pure water will 
contribute to the comfort of the baby, and it 
should always be given when the child is restless 
and fretful immediately after birth, when it ought 
to be sleeping ; this is especially true when the 
baby is born in very hot weather. 

Iti regard to the intervals between nursing, there 
is nothing that so conduces to the health and 
comfort of the mother as the formation of regu- 
lar habits in this respect. Do not nurse too often ; 
do not put the baby to the breast simply because 
it is crying. Never use such a means of soothing 



OLD AGE. 87 

sooner than the regular time ; never allow the baby 
to fall asleep at the breast unless at the end of a 
meal. Never allow the baby to nurse while the 
mother is asleep. To preserve the symmetry of 
the shape, as well as to insure a regular flow of 
milk, use the two breasts equally and in alterna- 
tion. Weaning should be gradual, beginning at 
the sixth or seventh month, when the first tooth 
appears, by assisting the breast with some appro- 
priate outside food. 

The physiological time for the cessation of the 
nursing period is, on the average, about the tenth 
month, although the time may be somewhat short- 
ened or somewhat lengthened without harm. At 
the seventh month, when the first tooth usually 
appears, a beginning of outside feeding may be 
made, but should not be carried to any great 
extent until more teeth come. 

Old Age. 

As the years pass by the respiration grows more 
shallow, the power of digestion weaker, the walls 
of the arteries become hardened by the slow accre- 
tion of earthy matters, and the fibers lose their 
elasticity. The veins become dilated, the skin 
grows dry and shriveled and the cartilages of the 
larynx ossify, changing the voice to a shrill treble. 
These and the more obvious changes, such as the 
loss of the teeth and hair, the bent form and the 
dull eye, warn us that the dietetic habits of mid- 
dle life and of youth should not be continued when 
old age comes on. 

The body in the last analysis may be considered 
as a network of exceedingly minute fibers and 



88 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

tubes, woven into the many tissues that make up 
the human form. The idea of a web or a 
reticulated structure is involved in the name "his- 
tology," which is the term applied to the study of 
the minute structure of tissue. The food that 
enters the mouth must undergo the most minute 
subdivision and solution in order to pass through 
this corporeal network in the processes of diges- 
tion and assimilation. This passage of nutritive 
material through the body is a continuous process 
from the first to the last day of life. Those who 
have watched the process of filtration of turbid 
fluids in the laboratory must have noticed how 
rapidly the fluid runs through the fresh filter, and 
how. as the minute interstices become clogged, it 
runs slower and slower until at last it comes 
through drop by drop. The new filter is like the 
clean and flexible tissues of youth, that rapidly 
eliminate the deleterious excreta of the bodv, and 
the debris-clogged filter is like the stiff, inflexible 
tissues of age, obstructed with the insoluble resi- 
dues of food that have been poured into the bodv 
for years. 

When we consider the great quantities of tough, 
fibrous and indigestible material, augmented in 
amount by man's propensity to self-indulgence, that 
enter the mouth during the lifetime of an indi- 
vidual, it is no wonder that those delicate organic 
pipes and tubes of which the human body is com- 
posed become clogged or that the fibers grow stiff 
and brittle. The phenomena of old age have their 
roots in this tissue-clogging process. 

To realize this, compare the soft, elastic skin and 
flexible joints of youth with the stiff limbs, slow 
movements, wrinkled features, dry skin and gouty 



OLD AGE. 89 

deposits of old age. The phenomena of age occur 
with many prematurely, simply because of habitual 
errors in eating. The tissues become choked and 
clogged sometimes from the ingestion of too much 
food, sometimes from food of an unhealthy char- 
acter, and sometimes from both. The approach of 
senility is greatly aided by worry, anxiety, in- 
dolence and irregularity. 

The first sign of old age is often an agreeable 
one and observed with self-congratulation. Some- 
where between the ages of 35 and 45 it is quite a 
common symptom for an individual to become 
plump. He looks better and younger than for 
some years previous ; friends remark how well he 
is looking and he observes with complacency that 
the looking-glass no longer reflects certain familiar 
wrinkles. This fullness of face and gain in weight 
is just as much a sign of increasing years as gray 
hair or wrinkles. It is retention, a slowing up of 
elimination and not an accession of sound tissue 
that produces this sudden gain of weight. 

Therefore, as the years roll by, it behooves a 
man to see to it that the ingestion of food does 
not exceed his powers of elimination. There is no 
better rule for holding on to youth. If he has 
lived ill, there will never be a better time to cor- 
rect past errors ; if he has lived well now is the 
time to continue and improve his habits, in order 
that the fruits of past regularity may be fully en- 
joyed. 

Temperance and regularity should be the pre- 
siding principles of the old man's life. A scrupu- 
lous regularity as to times of eating is of great 
service, for the numerous organs of the body that 
are beyond the direct control of the will are suffi- 



90 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

ciently amenable to the voluntary parts to have 
good habits formed in their operations and func- 
tions by external regularity. Further, it will be 
found upon examination that men and women who 
have attained extreme old age have, almost with- 
out exception, been very abstemious in their diet. 
This is in agreement with reason, for not only is 
the metabolic power of the cells weak and the tis- 
sues apt to be clogged, but the bodily activity is 
naturally less. The flickering flame of life is a 
hundred times more apt to be choked by an over- 
plus than to fail from too little fuel. 

The activity of the old is less ; they therefore 
need relatively less of tissue-forming foods. 

The bodily heat needs to be maintained ; they 
therefore need relatively more of fat or sugars, or 
both. 

The waning powers of elimination and assimila- 
tion indicate that the total amount of food should 
be diminished. The decay and loss of the teeth 
show that hard and fibrous food is not appropriate, 
and the character of the food in this respect should 
depend somewhat upon the state of the teeth. 

Whatever else may be neglected, the thorough 
insalivation of the food should not be. The ab- 
sence or inefficiency of the teeth make this im- 
perative. Even hard food is safe if it be chewed, 
bit, munched, rolled, pressed, macerated and com- 
minuted in the mouth, until completely reduced 
and made alkaline. 

_ The utmost deliberation in eating is therefore a 
sine qua non of the health of the aged. Under 
these conditions the following foods are capable of 
continuing the attenuated thread of life indefinitelv. 



OLD AGE. 91 

Follow carefully the directions on page 28 in 
regard to the manner of eating. 

Bread and rich milk. Select the bread (white, 
brown, wheat, rye or corn) most pleasing to the 
taste. 

Rice and rich milk. 

Any well-cooked cereal and milk. 

Buttered toast and tea. 

Bread and bacon. 

Small amounts of roast or broiled meats during 
special activity in the open air. 

Eggs, brown bread and potato. 

Honey, figs, dates, cocoa, chocolate, turnips, let- 
tuce, carrots, spinach, celery and fruits in general, 
especially apples. For beverages, tea, coffee, 
chocolate, wine and whisky, all in moderation and 
never more than one kind at one meal. Plum 
pudding, pies, mincemeat, butter cakes, fruit cakes, 
doughnuts, greasy fried foods must be abstained 
from. 

It will be seen from this that the kind of food 
selected for the aged is not so important as the 
regulation of the amount, and the manner of eat- 
ing it. The following points cover the subject: 

1st. Simple food (not rich, not spiced, not 
highly flavored, not too much mixed). 

2d. Attention to the thorough and complete in- 
salivation of each mouthful. 

3d. Care that the moderate amounts demanded 
by natural appetite are not by one jot exceeded. 

If a definite figure be requested, it may be sug- 
gested that for an old man of 140 pounds, doing 
little or no manual labor, the total amount of the 
above food might be limited to 20 ounces, divided 
into two or three meals, as desired. There can be 



92 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

no objection to wine, taken moderately and reg- 
ularly, if the individual wants it. Also there is no 
special reason for advising it. 

Brain Workers. 

It has been found by careful experimentation, 
the most recent and accurate of which is At- 
water's, that severe and continuous mental labor 
causes no more tissue waste than absolute rest. 
That is to say, the most accurate instrument with 
which we are acquainted, is unable to show that 
mental activity affects tissue waste any more than 
absolute rest. That there is a difference is certain ; 
whether science will ever be able to demonstrate it 
or not is problematical. Cholestrin seems to be 
increased by mental work and is eliminated by the 
bile, but the metabolic changes involved are not 
such as a respiration calorimeter is capable of 
showing. 

Brain workers arc very apt to be sedentary in 
habit and not infrequently such work is accom- 
panied by high living and late hours. Such a life, 
namely, plentiful eating and drinking, with bodily 
indolence, tense nerves and worry, is the best pos- 
sible combination for bringing on an early break- 
down, as pointed out under Bright's disease. 

There are no doubt special brain foods, or foods 
that especially nourish the nervous system, but as 
yet we do not know just what parts of food they 
are from the standpoint of exact experimentation. 
Under these circumstances we must depend upon 
practical experience. 

In the first place, the brain is less directly de- 
pendent upon food than any other organ. It is a 



BR.-UX WORKERS. 93 

general rule that the higher the function of any 
organ the less it suffers from withdrawal of food, 
hence, the brain being the highest organ in the 
body, suffers the least of all. It is a matter of 
common observation that the brain works better 
under a light diet and best of all under abstinence 
from solid food. All the tissues yield to it in 
importance, and as a consequence it draws 
aliment from all the other organs, as ministers and 
servants, when the external food supply is deficient. 
The ideal diet, therefore, for a brain worker is 
a very light one, of a not too easily digestible 
character, at the same time the food should have 
sufficient residue to prevent constipation. 

Fine white bread should be avoided, and the 
coarser breads selected. Graham, entire wheat, 
oatmeal crackers, pumkernickel (whole rye), corn 
bread and Boston brown bread offer sufficient va- 
riety to select from. The feces from an exclusive 
diet of Graham bread outweigh and are greater 
in bulk than those from an exclusive diet of entire 
wheat bread, by double, and from the feces of a 
patent flour bread diet by a quadruple proportion. 
This bulkiness of intestinal contents takes the place 
to a certain extent of exercise and tends to obviate 
the constipation of sedentary pursuits. The slight 
waste of starchy matter found in the bulky stools 
is of no great importance. The objection to fine 
white bread also extends to meat, with the addi- 
tional disadvantage, that the nitrogenous products 
of the digestion of meat encumber the internal or- 
gans more than vegetables. 

The no-breakfast plan works well with many 
sedentary brain workers. During the morning 
hours, if the stomach is empty, the mental faculties 



94 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

are generally alert and the best work can be done. 
There are thousands of people who have no ap- 
petite for breakfast and simply eat in conformity 
with a long-established habit. They form the "cup 
of coffee and a roll" brigade so numerous in the 
United States. 

With such people there is a certain repugnance 
to solid food in the early morning. Tf such people 
will make a trial of the no-breakfasl plan they will 
probably be surprised at the improvement. The 
following menu will serve to give an idea of the 
amount and kind of food recommended for mental 
and sedentary occupations : 

Breakfast : Either none or a cup of coffee. 

Lunch : One or two caviar sandwiches made 
with coarse bread, lettuce, cucumbers and a banana 
with cream ; chocolate or tea, as preferred. 

Dinner: Meat, fish or eggs, toast and butter, 
spinach, tomatoes, ice cream and tea. 

As a spur to intellectual effort there is no 
stimulus equal to a cup of black coffee, imme- 
diately followed by a cup of tea. They are the 
beverages of the intellect. 

During continuous mental work, without exer- 
cise, the total food for a day need not weigh over 
16 ounces. A rational liver, however, would take 
some regular muscular outdoor exercise, and his 
mental work would be all the better for it and 
more food would then be needed. 

Diet for Muscular Work. 

A liberal allowance of carbohydrates, one-eighth 
to one-fourth as much protein, and plentv of fat 
if the climate is cold, will give power for sustained 



HARD LABOR. 95 

hard labor. In a well-developed individual with 
sound heart and vigorous digestion, an enormous 
amount of labor can be accomplished on food of 
the above character, amounting to 4,000 or 4,500 
Calories. The diet need not be greatly varied ex- 
cept for the purpose of pleasing the palate ; indeed, 
if confined to a few standard articles of food the 
life is simpler and the results better. 

When first starting in on severe labor the mus- 
cles will become stiff, and some little time may be 
required before a proper equilibrium is established. 
If the amount of food is correct and the elimina- 
tion good there will be no loss of weight, the eye 
will be bright and the muscles will soon recover 
from the exhaustion of a hard day without stiff- 
ness. If the work is in the open air more food 
can be taken with advantage; when the task is a 
strenuous one, taxing the utmost power of the 
individual, but not of long duration, a liberal sup- 
ply of meat gives the best results, because it yields 
up its energy quickly, and is thus like a fuel that, 
burning quickly, makes an intense heat. When a 
sustained, long-continued effort is to be made the 
cereals undoubtedly give the best results. Barley 
was highly esteemed by the athletes of ancient 
Greece on account of the endurance it imparted. 
It is the rapid generation of power from the 
protein of meat, that has rendered the beef, mutton, 
toast and tea diet so popular with athletes training 
for races, prize-fights and other short-lasting de- 
mands for a supreme effort. That a man so fed 
cannot be held long in a tip-top condition is shown 
by the fact that after reaching the acme of his 
powers he falls away or becomes stale, no doubt 



96 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

owing to the large amount of nitrogenous debris 
that clogs his system. 

Bread and milk, simple as it is, gives the ma- 
terials for hard and enduring labor in admirable 
proportion, as their analysis shows. Bread con- 
tains 8 or 9 per cent of protein, 51 to 55 per cent 
of carbohydrate and 1.5 per cent of fat, with a 
little over t per cent of minerals, and yields 1,250 
Calories to the pound. Milk contains 3 or 4 per 
cent of protein, 4 per cent of fat, 4 per cent of 
carbohydrate and .7 per cent of ash, and yields 780 
Calories to the pint. Two pound loaves of bread 
and three pints of milk furnish 4,600 Calories, and 
a steady diet of these standard foods can be borne 
longer without monotony offending the taste, than 
of almost any other foods. A little meat, a little 
fruit, a little coffee or tea, makes a sufficient 
variety, so that it can not only be tolerated, but 
even relished indefinitely. Oats prepared as a 
porridge answers the same purpose excellently, 
but is not relished for so long a time. Owing to 
the large proportion of water used in its prepara- 
tion, the per cent of food principles in boiled oats 
is much reduced from what the dry oats yield, but 
the relative proportion is good ; the ratio of pro- 
tein to carbohydrate is higher than in bread and 
milk. 

Boiled oatmeal, that is. porridge, contains 2.8 
per cent protein, .5 per cent fat and 12 per cent 
carbohydrate ■; a pound of it yields 285 Calories. An 
excellent instance of its power of giving sustained 
endurance during hard labor was shown by the re- 
markable feat of the Great Western Railway of 
England in the summer of 1872. "It was neces- 
sary to shift the rails from the broad to the nar- 



HARD LABOR. 97 

row gauge on upward of 500 miles of permanent 
way within a fortnight. The task was enormous, 
for the Great Western is one of the few English 
lines whose rails are held down by bolts screwed 
into nuts. All these had to be unscrewed and re- 
placed after removing the heavy rails two feet. 
About 3,000 men were employed, working double 
time, from 4 in the morning till 9 at night, and, 
without one being sick or drunk, they accomplished 
the work in the prescribed time. The scheme for 
generating muscular power was this : The men 
were hutted along the line, so as not to waste their 
strength by coming and going, and they brought 
with them bacon, bread, cheese, cocoa, etc., to 
provide their usual meals at the usual times. But 
they had no beer nor alcohol in any form. A 
pound and a half of oatmeal and half a pound of 
sugar was allowed extra to each man daily, and 
for every gang of 21 a cook was provided. 

"The first thing done in the morning was to 
breakfast, and then the cook and his cauldron 
started along the line till water was found con- 
venient, a fireplace of stones was built, the fire 
started and the pot boiled. 

"Oatmeal was then sprinkled into it with sugar 
and thoroughly well boiled, till a thin gruel was 
made. As soon as "the shout for drinks" was 
heard, buckets were filled and carried around with 
small pannikins to convey the liquid to the panting 
mouths. The men liked it exceedingly, and 
learned by experience the importance of having it 
well cooked." 

The error that is oftenest made by professional 
trainers and athletes is carrying the meat food 
principle to an excessive degree. 



98 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

During a protracted feat of endurance a food is 
needed that will absorb and assimilate with little 
expenditure of energy, and supply the muscles with 
fuel ; for this purpose there is nothing so admir- 
able as lump sugar. Instead of the large quantities 
of meat usually eaten as a part of the training for 
athletic events, it is recommended that after a six- 
day course of beef or mutton and toast to reduce 
weight and remove superfluous fat, cereals largely 
take the place of the meat. If food is needed dur- 
ing the trial we recommend sugar, and after the 
effort is over a large bowl of infused tea, sweet- 
ened, but without milk, as the best restorative. 

Food for Anemia. 

It should be remembered that anaemia is a gen- 
eral term for several conditions of the system. 
Any abnormal variation in the quantity or quality 
of the blood comes under this head ; it may refer 
to a reduction of the blood as a whole or to a lack 
of certain important constituents, such as the red 
corpuscles, the albuminous constituents or the 
haemoglobin. 

The diminution of the blood as a whole is com- 
monly due to hemorrhage of a sudden and profuse 
character; the condition is serious in proportion to 
the amount of blood lost and the suddenness of its 
withdrawal. It may be necessary, in order to save 
life, to resort to subcutaneous injections of normal 
salt solution (Note VIII). This is necessary when 
the patient is in collapse, the surface cold, the 
pulse small and rapid and the countenance drawn 
and peaked. 

Under these conditions the absorbents of the 
alimentary canal cannot be depended upon, and the 



ANAEMIA. 99 

only food imperatively demanded is a weak salt 
solution, but administered by subcutaneous or rectal 
injection. 

In less severe hemorrhages, which are by far the 
most frequently met with in practice, the patient 
is able to swallow, and there is an eager and in- 
satiable thirst present, as an indication of the proper 
method of introducing fluid to make up the loss. 
After a hemorrhage the watery and saline constitu- 
ents of the blood are quickly restored by absorp- 
tion. The albuminous elements are also made up 
with comparative ease, but it may take weeks or 
months before the red corpuscles — those minute 
organic forms peculiar to blood — are regenerated. 
The food that corresponds most closely in chem- 
ical elements is milk, and this result of analysis is 
fully borne out by experience. Iron, however, 
which is of extreme importance to the blood, is 
very scantily represented in milk. It would take 
something like 6 l / 2 pints to furnish the 1-6 of a 
grain of iron that is daily used up in the system, 
and much more than this is needed when the sys- 
tem has been depleted by hemorrhage. A little 
excess of iron at such a time does no harm, as the 
red corpuscles cannot be regenerated without it. 

The ideal food, therefore, to restore the losses by 
hemorrhage is milk plus a small amount of iron. 
It has been my plan to add 5 drops of dialyzed 
iron to as much strictly fresh milk as the patient 
is likely to consume in a day. This amount of 
iron does not curdle the milk nor change its taste 
in the least. It rapidly changes into an easily di- 
gestible oxide. This is about thirty times as much 
iron as the body uses per day in the normal condi- 
tion, and furnishes, therefore, an abundant surplus 



ioo CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

for the regeneration of the red blood. It must be 
shaken before each draft of it. 

It is a useful rule in practice that so long as the 
patient complains of thirst and is capable of 
demanding drink, the natural method of introduc- 
ing fluids is sufficient, but when there is such a 
state of collapse that either no thirst is felt or else 
the patient is not able to express it, subcutaneous 
or rectal injections must be quickly resorted to. 

Anaemia is frequently produced by long-contin- 
ued drain upon the albuminous constituents of the 
blood, such as occurs in chronic suppuration or in 
Bright's disease. Lactation, although a natural 
process, may produce the same condition when 
too prolonged. When the drain comes from a 
chronic flow of pus there is an especial need for 
nuclein and fat. Eggs, and especially e^ yolks, 
milk, sweetbreads and glandular organs in gen- 
eral, shad-roe and caviar all present these ele- 
ments in a digestible form. Bright's disease has 
been spoken of in a separate chapter. In 
chlorosis the lacking element is purely iron, for in 
this disease the subcutaneous fat is well main- 
tained. As an average there is about one-sixth 
grain in the ordinary food of a day. 

To keep up the quality of the mother's blood 
during lactation a pint of oatmeal gruel a day, in 
addition to the usual food of the woman, is 
all that is necessary. It should be divided to suit 
the wishes of the individual, and the same ap- 
plies to flavoring. 

Resume : For hemorrhage, milk, either whole 
or diluted with water, according to circumstances, 
to which the necessary constituent iron has been 
added in the proportion of five drops of the 



DISEASES OF THE STOMACH. 101 

officinal solution of dialyzed iron to a quart. After 
immediate danger is passed and the patient, al- 
though pale and weak, is able to digest solid food, 
green vegetables, and especially tender green 
peas, are the most appropriate because of the pre- 
ponderance of potassium salts in these articles of 
food over sodium ; the red corpuscles, the most 
difficult element to restore and the slowest in 
reforming, are rich in potassium and require 
much of it. 

Anaemia from loss of rich albuminous fluids, as 
pus or semen, requires food rich in nuclein, such 
as eggs, especially egg yolks, sweetbreads, liver, 
shad-roe and caviar. 

Chlorotic anaemia needs iron food — spinach, 
green vegetables, oats, lentils, apples and straw- 
berries. 

Lactation : A pint, or about that quantity, of 
oatmeal gruel a day. It should be flavored and 
divided into two or three portions, according to 
the wishes of the patient. The following list of 
foods is in the order of their richness in iron : 

Spinach. Oats. 

Egg yolks. Strawberries. 

Beef. Beans. 

Apples. Peas. 
Lentils. 

Diet in Various Diseases of the Stomach. 

Sour Stomach. — The reaction of the stomach 
contents is normally acid, hence by sour stomach 
is meant an abnormal degree of acidity. Two acids 
are usually found in the stomach after a meal, in- 
dependent of any acids that may have been taken 



102 CHEMISTRY Of FOODS. 

in the food, namely, hydrochloric acid and lactic 
acid. The first is derived from the blood and the 
latter from chemical changes in the starchy and 
saccharine food. 

Sour stomach, in the abnormal sense, may arise 
from either of these two acids, namely, from an 
oversecretion of the hydrochloric acid or from 
too great a production of lactic acid from fermen- 
tation of the carbohydrates. These two conditions 
are frequently confounded under the names of acid 
dyspepsia, sour stomach, heart-burn or pyrosis. 
The name usually adopted for excess of hydro- 
chloric acid is hyperchlorhydria. 

Hyperchlorhydrta. — The obstinate acid eructa- 
tions of the aged are most commonly of this 
variety ; it also occurs in middle life, but is rare 
in children. It may be caused by the undue con- 
sumption of spiced and highly seasoned dishes, the 
alternation of very cold and hot drinks, the in- 
judicious use of alcohol, the hasty deglutition of 
unmasticated food, the American habit of cooling 
off with ice water and of drinking ice cream soda. 
Mental depression, anxiety, fits of anger, grief and 
worry are also potent sources of this condition. 

A distinguishing point is relief from food, es- 
pecially meat or eggs, followed by a recurrence 
after the food is digested. The acidity of the urine 
is diminished. A suitable dose of an alkali, such 
as potassium carbonate, affords immediate, though 
temporary, relief. The dietetic treatment of this 
condition is the avoidance of the things just indi- 
cated as causes of it. Avoid spices and condi- 
ments, ice water, ice cream, very hot drinks, fat. 
heavy, greasy food and highly salted food. Culti- 
vate serenity, deliberate eating and simple food. 



DISEASES OF THE STOMACH. 103 

Never touch the very sweet, very cold, very rich 
so-called Sundae sodas so much affected of late 
years by ladies and children. Abstain from alco- 
holic beverages or use them much diluted with 
water. The overeating- of the most appropriate 
food is often responsible for an attack of hyper- 
chlorhydria. Partial fasting, such as limiting food 
to one moderate meal a day, is a prompt cure. 
Many of these cases do well on a nearly exclusive 
milk diet. Others, strange to say, have been 
cured by buttermilk. The mild alkaline reaction of 
fresh milk helps to moderate the acidity and af- 
fords sufficient nourishment. Raw eggs are very 
unirritating and also help neutralize the free acid. 
Fats, starches and sugars should be restricted and 
a less amount of salt than usual should be con- 
sumed. A pure vegetarian, with this trouble, is in 
a bad way and should be advised that a temporary 
meat, egg or milk diet is necessary. The list of 
advised articles, then, is as follows : Milk, broiled 
lean beef, stale bread or toast very moderately, 
very little of butter or other fat, dry grated cheese, 
eggs raw or jellied, junket, and in some cases 
buttermilk. 

After improvement, the diet may be extended so 
as to include carbohydrate with some small gran- 
uled starch, such as rice or cornstarch, or well- 
cooked tapioca and ripe fruit. The two latter used 
separately and not together, as they frequently are 
in the form of a pudding. 

Hypochlorhvbria. — Sour stomach from fer- 
mentation. This is the more common variety, and 
is due to the excessive formation of lactic and 
butyric acids ; sometimes also acetic acid. This 
condition of acid fermentation is a constant ac- 



104 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

companiment of gastric catarrh, slow digestion, 
cancer, dilatation of the stomach and many cases 
of difficult digestion. 

Hence it includes numerous cases, that vary a 
good deal in detail and arise from various causes. 
The immediate cause of the acidity, strange to say, 
is a deficiency of the normal hydrochloric acid in 
the stomach. Thus arises the strictly true paradox 
that the most common cause of sour stomach is a 
lack of sourness (that is, normal acid) in the 
gastric juice. It arises thus ; the normal amount of 
hydrochloric acid (3 parts per thousand) inhibits 
the activity of the lactic acid-producing organisms 
and thus preserves the carbohydrates from fermen- 
tation and consequent acidity. 

The golden rule of diet in all stomach troubles 
applies here : Eat little and masticate that little 
well. Buttermilk agrees with so many of these 
cases that it has earned the reputation of being 
particularly suitable, except when arising from 
dilatation of the stomach. Buttermilk contains 
about 1 per cent of lactic acid, and why or how 
it agrees when the trouble is due to lactic acid is 
not easily seen, but such seems to be the fact. 
Pastry, hot breadstuffs, puddings, fried foods and 
greasy foods must be absolutely avoided. 

Appropriate foods are such as do not tarry long- 
in the stomach, and also such as do not easily yield 
to the process of fermentation. 

A raw or jellied egg or two, buttered toast and 
tea make an appropriate breakfast. 

Broiled steak or roast beef, a little stale bread 
and greens, and a little custard for dessert. 

Ham and eggs, tea, toast and lettuce. 

Sugars, syrups and starchy food must be much 



DISEASES OF THE STOMACH. 



105 



reduced. The following list of foods and time of 
sojourn in the stomach may prove useful in select- 
ing articles of food : 



Foods that Ferment 
Readily. 
Milk. 
Rice. 

Macaroni. 
Cornstarch. 
Sago. 
Farina. 
Bread. 
Toast. 
Syrups. 
Cereals. 
Beans. 
Grapes. 
Fruits in general. 



Foods that Ferment 
with Difficulty. 
Beef. 
Game. 
Mutton. 
Chicken. 
Ham. 

Cod and other fish. 
Bacon. 
Eggs. 
Spinach. 
Boiled milk. 
Asparagus. 
Cabbage. 
Brussel sprouts. 
Tomatoes. 
Celery. 
Cucumbers. 
Carrots. 
Cauliflower. 

Calves' brains, sweetbreads, pigeon, chicken and 
jellied or soft eggs remain in the stomach but a 
short time and are not inclined to fermentation. 
The less digestible foods, such as ham or beef, 
may be left out, until improvement is manifest or 
until required to break the monotony. 

Meat and eggs should preponderate in most 
cases, and it is wise to keep the food at a meal 
limited to two articles. The total amount of food 
should be kept down. If the patient has not the 



106 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

self-control to follow the directions upon page 
28 the limit may be fixed at about 16 to 20 
ounces in weight, of about 1,000 to 1,400 Calories 
value. The directions found in standard works 
are certainly too high (Einhorn, 2,863 C. ; Fried- 
enwald & Ruhrah, 2,456 C). Occasionally cases 
will be found, which, to the surprise of the 
dietetist, do better on three pints of buttermilk 
and a few crackers than anything else. 

Gastric Ulcer. — This condition is generally 
accompanied by hyperchlorhydria. In acute cases 
entire abstinence from food for a time is wise. 
Solid food, especially food with irritating parti- 
cles, such as toast, coarse bread, all acids and 
fibrous vegetables, should be forbidden, even after 
improvement has been present for some time. 

Milk, junket and strained rice-water mixed with 
milk must suffice in the early stages of the disease. 
Entire abstinence from food with rest in bed is 
necessary after a hemorrhage. Rectal feeding is 
not generally necessary, unless the patient is ex- 
ceedingly weak and thin ; when such is the case, a 
cleansing injection of warm, weak, salt water 
should be first used ; after it has run oft" and the 
patient rested half an hour five ounces of luke- 
warm milk (temp. 102 F.) should be slowly in- 
jected rather high in the bowel, while the patient 
is lying on the face or left side. The process may 
be repeated every three or four hours, until the pa- 
tient is able to eat. As soon as milk or junket 
diet grows monotonous albumen water may be 
substituted, also strained barley gruel, oatmeal 
gruel, and in some cases a little rich cream mixed 
with the gruel. 

Ice cream may be tried, eaten slowly, and if 



DISEASES OF THE STOMACH. 107 

found to agree can be used every four hours, or 
occasionally, as a relief to monotonv. Sweet 
cream (i. e., free from casein) diluted with twice 
its volume of cold water, to which a pinch of 
bicarbonate of soda has been added, has proved so 
great a boon in a number of cases that I am 
inclined to begin using it in all cases. The ex- 
planation probably is that cream and water so 
mixed and drank cold, passes rapidly to the in- 
testine, where it is digested without molesting the 
stomach. 

A patient who has once suffered an attack of 
gastric ulcer should avoid harsh foods for half a 
year after recovery, remedying the constipation 
that is apt to result from a smooth diet with small 
residue, by exercise in the open air and abdominal 
massage. 

Gastric Carcinoma. — Cream diluted with wa- 
ter, either cold or hot, albumen water, raw or soft- 
boiled eggs, will furnish fat and protein. Strained 
gruels of oats or barley, salted, sweetened and 
flavored with a little port wine, supply carbohy- 
drate. Meals should be small and frequent and 
the patient should live in fresh air as much as 
possible. 

Meats, coarse breads and green vegetables are 
to be avoided. Cocoa or chocolate is a better 
beverage than either coffee or tea. The patient 
must be content with little. If hunger prevails 
over reason, select foods that tarry but a short 
time in the stomach, such as calves' brains, oysters, 
fish of the lean varieties (whitefish, carp, pike), 
cauliflower, mashed potatoes, fine white bread (no 
crust), scraped raw sweet apples. 

Some authorities, impressed with the idea that 



108 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

the patient's strength must be kept up, advise 
much food of a concentrated character, such as 
digested meat preparations. The trouble is that 
such feeding is more apt to keep up the strength 
of the cancer than that of the patient. 

Dilatation of Stomach. — This condition is 
usually due to stenosis of the pylorus ; the stenosis 
may be due to either benign or malignant disease. 

The food for this condition should be given in 
small and frequent meals ; it is a wise plan to 
drink little or no water and to select the drier 
kinds of food. The needs of the system for water 
can be largely supplied by rectal injections of 
pure water. Some cases thrive best when the 
greater part of the nourishment is protein foods 
with a minimum of starch ; these are usually 
benign cases. The malignant cases seem generally 
to digest starchy food better than meats. The 
principal rules are : 

Dry foods and little drink. 

Rectal injections of water (8 to 12 ounces at a 
time, three or four times in 24 hours). 

Predominance of the unfermentable nitrogen- 
ous food in benign cases. 

A relatively greater proportion of easily di- 
gested carbohydrates in malignant cases. 

Diet for Diabetics. 

In no other affection that the physician is called 
upon to treat does the patient's comfort and the 
prolongation of life, so greatly depend upon a 
wisely regulated dietary as in diabetes. 

Whatever views may be held as to the pathol- 
ogy of this obscure disease there is fortunately an 



DIABETES. 109 



almost entire agreement as to the benefit to be 
derived from a restriction of the relative amount 
of the carbohydrates in the food. This is so plain 
and so generally admitted that the error of taking 
it too literally and of employing it without dis- 
crimination must be guarded against. Simple 
withdrawal of starch and sugar in all or in part 
does not comprise everything that can be said 
upon the subject. 

Diabetics thrive better upon a moderate reduc- 
tion in the carbohydrates than upon their entire 
withdrawal; moreover, there is a point in each 
individual case, in this respect, where the patient 
thrives best, that is, maintains the maximum of 
strength, and this point must be found by ex- 
perimentation in each individual case. 

The three factors by which the result of any 
diet is to be judged are the amount of sugar in 
the urine, the loss or gain of body weight and the 
feelings of the patient. An intelligent effort must 
be made to reduce the carbohydrates to a point 
where the patient's health is best preserved, the 
diminished carbohydrates being replaced so far as 
possible by an increased consumption of fats and 

oils. 

In order to intelligently apply dietetic rules to 
particular cases it is necessary to ascertain the 
gravitv of the condition by a test that will show 
the carbohydrate-digesting power of the individual. 
This requires some trouble and care, but when 
the knowledge is obtained it makes it possible to 
e-ive a reliable prognosis and to correctly an- 
swer the question, "To what extent is it wise to 
restrict this patient's diet?" 



no CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

The Lest is made by putting the patient for a 
few days (four or five) upon a diet from which 
carbohydrates are rigidly excluded, i. e., beef, 
mutton, pork, ham, bacon, fish, eggs, butter, let- 
tuce, spinach, cucumbers with water and unsweet- 
ened tea or coffee for a beverage. If sugar per- 
sists upon this diet the case is a severe one and 
the prognosis grave, for the reason that the sugar 
must be produced from the protein in the tissues 
themselves. During the test the patient should 
live a very regular life in regard to exercise and 
care should be taken that there are no unusual 
emotions. 

In many cases the sugar will disappear entirely 
from the urine after the first 24 hours of the test 
period. This shows that the case is a mild one. 

As soon as it has been demonstrated that the 
sugar has disappeared cornstarch in known 
amounts is added to the diet until sugar appears 
once more in the urine. The other conditions 
remaining the same, the amount of cornstarch 
that can be added to the diet until sugar just 
appears shows the carbohydrate digesting power 
of the patient. 

Some patients seem to consider the time of the 
test period as a very severe one ; others do not 
mind it much. As great variety as possible at 
the different meals, but still within the prescribed 
limits, should be offered ; the patient should be 
under close observation, to see that carbohy- 
drates are not eaten unwittingly. 

Cases will also be found in which the strict 
test diet removes all sugar from the urine, and yet 
the smallest amount of starch brings it back again ; 
such cases would rank between the severe and the 



DIABETES. in 

mild ones. The following facts should be remarked : 
fats never cause sugar in the urine. Alcohol does 
not produce sugar in the urine. Exercise dimin- 
ishes the sugar in mild cases and is then beneficial, 
but it increases it in severe cases and is then 
deleterious. 

In arranging a suitable dietary the following 
principles should prevail : 

For the mild cases : The amount of protein, 
such as meat and cheese, need not be changed. 
The fatty food should be increased at the expense 
of the starch and sugar. If two ounces of bread 
are borne before sugar appears in the urine that 
much bread is allowed ; if six ounces of bread 
are borne that much is allowed. 

For the more severe cases : The proportion of 
the protein should be increased, the fats in- 
creased and a sufficient amount, but no more, of 
starchy and saccharine food allowed to give the 
patient the maximum of strength. 

In the severest cases, the ones in which urinary 
sugar persists upon the strict test diet, showing 
the case to be hopeless, the principle of giving 
the patient the greatest amount of comfort enters 
into the field ; in other words, the restriction must 
not be carried so far that in order to keep a 
little sugar out of the urine the patient is made 
very uncomfortable by severe deprivation. The 
protein should be somewhat decreased ; the fat 
should be increased to the greatest extent possi- 
ble; that is, all that the patient can digest should 
be given and pains should be taken to present it 
in various ways, so that it may not become offen- 
sive. Then that minimal amount of starch and 



ii2 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

sugar which has been proved in the case under 
treatment to be the best. 

It has been found that patients suffer more 
from the deprivation of bread than from any .other 
form of starchy food, and it is well to give what 
starch is allowable in the form of bread. The 
lack of sugar is better borne, especially with some 
slight assistance from saccharin. 

The total amount of urinary sugar should be 
considered, but too much stress need not be 
put upon that feature alone, as is sometimes done. 
If the patient feels miserable and is gradually 
failing in strength he or she is not doing well, 
even if all the sugar has been driven out of the 
urine. 

The general prosperity, the feeling of well- 
being and the maintenance of the strength and 
body-weight of the patient has far greater im- 
portance than the amount of urinary sugar. 

In addition to these general rules, if acetone 
appears in the urine or in the breath the amount 
of carbohydrates should be immediately increased. 
(See Note IX.) 

Fat is better liked and better digested with 
carbohydrates than without them, and there is 
room for the exercise of considerable ingenuity 
in making less obvious the fatty character of the 
food. Steamed and mashed potatoes may be 
made to carry a great deal of butter and cream 
without altering their flavor much. Spinach, tur- 
nips and salads may be made to do the same thing 
and serve as a vehicle for butter and olive oil. 
Bread or toast fried in bacon fat also serve a use- 
ful purpose, and when eggs are used they should 
be scrambled with an extra quantity of butter. 



DIABETES. 113 

A list of foods is here given, and their con- 
tent so far as carbohydrates go. 

Foods that are practically free from carbohy- 
drates: Meats of all kinds except liver, fish of all 
kinds, cheese of all kinds, cottage cheese, cream, 
eggs, fats and oils, Baker's chocolate, spinach, 
cucumbers, lettuce, asparagus, sauerkraut, celery, 
cabbage, cauliflower, tomatoes, gelatin, coffee, tea 
and whisky. 

Foods that contain a small amount only of car- 
bohydrates, and are hence allowable in reduced 
quantity: Liver, giblets, shad-roe, sausage, turnip, 
oysters, clams, eggplant, string beans, radishes, 
walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, cocoanut. Brazil nuts, 
carrots, parsnips, beer. 

Foods that contain larger amounts of carbohy- 
drates and hence are to be used in greatly reduced 
quantities : Sugar, cornstarch, tapioca, sago, ar- 
rowroot, honey, bread, potatoes, rice, macaroni, 
apples, peaches, berries, plums, cherries, bananas 
and fruits in general. 

As great variety in food as is consistent with 
the object in view should be maintained. In sub- 
stituting one carbohydrate for another, with this 
object an equivalent value rather than an equal 
amount should be given. Thus 2 ounces of stale 
bread contains as much carbohydrate as : 

1.2 ounce arrowroot. 

6 ounces white potatoes. 

1.5 ounce lentils. 

1.5 ounce cracked wheat. 

1.5 ounce rice. 

35 or 40 ounces tart apples. 



ii4 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

The great value of potatoes and apples in 
relieving the monotony of the restricted diet are 
evident at a glance. Milk is sometimes greatly 
missed by diabetics who have become habituated 
to its use, and may be prepared free from sugar 
by the following method : 

Warm one quart of milk to blood heat ( ioo 
F.) and add one fluiddram of hydrochloric acid 
diluted with three ounces of water. Stir and al- 
low the mixture to stand for five or ten minutes. 
Collect the separated casein by straining the 
mixture on a fine strainer and allow to drain 
without pressure. Pour very slowly two pints of 
water upon the casein, stirring it, so as to remove 
most, if not all, of the acid. When it has drained 
dry, place in a mortar and rub to a smooth paste 
with 40 grains of potassium hydrate dissolved in 
three ounces of water. Add three ounces of rich 
cream and 50 grains of pure gelatin previously 
dissolved in warm water, one grain of saccharin 
and water, to make one quart. 

This milk contains all the elements of milk 
except the sugar and salts and retains the flavor 
and taste of milk. 

The physician will meet certain cases excreting 
urinary sugar in spite of a very strict diet, whose 
system seems to resent the restrictions that have 
to be imposed. Although there is no good ex- 
planation for it, such cases may do well upon an 
entire change of food. They may be put upon 
Van Noorden's oatmeal regimen. It is applicable 
to severe cases only as the milder cases do not do 
well on it. 

A good quality of rolled oats should be well 
cooked with the addition of a little salt and 



DIABETES. US 

toward the end of the process a large proportion 
of butter added. As soon as the temperature falls 
below the coagulating point of albumen the whites 
of one or two eggs beaten to a light froth are 
stirred in. It is eaten without other addition. 

The quantities needed by a person of average 
weight are about as follows : 

Rolled oats, 8 to 12 ounces. 
Egg whites, 5 to 6 ounces. 
Butter, 8 ounces. 

The butter should be of the finest quality and 
free from "off" flavors. Limited as this diet is, 
many patients prefer it to that which is usually 
recommended. Black coffee or tea without either 
sugar or milk is allowed, and Van Noorden 
recommends an occasional vegetable day to relieve 
the monotony. In all cases except the severest 
ones he recommends an occasional period of a few 
days of the test diet, with the view of re- 
educating the system to absorb the carbohydrates. 

Prognosis : Cases occurring in fleshy old peo- 
ple are apt to be mild; the younger the patient 
and the leaner the more rapid and fatal the case. 

The amount of food eaten by diabetic patients 
must be larger than in health owing to the waste 
of carbohydrate in the urine. If the digestion is 
vigorous the amount of food may reach 48 
ounces or more with advantage. The Calorie 
value will also run high owing to the increased 
proportion of fat, which we try to put in the diet ; 
4,000 calories is not too high, for the disadvan- 
tages and dangers of encumbered tissues disappear 
before the necessity of making up the waste that 
occurs in the urine and of keeping up the strength. 



n6 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

Diet in Bright's Disease. 

To avoid Bright's disease is of very much 
more importance than to give it the best dietetic 
treatment after it has been acquired. It is prob- 
ably one of the most avoidable of the chronic 
diseases, if only a little self-restraint be employed 
habitually. 

Feasting, anxiety and sedentary habits are the 
three things that cause the great majority of the 
numerous cases of this fatal disease. If a man 
engage in politics or in any business or profes- 
sion that abounds in eating and drinking, that is 
accompanied with great nerve strain and little 
exercise, he had better look to it that about the 
time when he should be reaping the fruit of his 
labors, Bright's disease does not enter upon the 
scene and put a quietus upon all his enjoyments, 
if not upon himself. 

To run the risk of getting it is easy, to actually 
get it is not difficult ; the life that invites it is full 
of pleasurable excitement and the approach of ill 
health is so gradual that very frequently the dis- 
ease is well seated before its unhappy possessor is 
at all aware that he is sick. 

To avoid the grip of this fatal disease live 
plainly and simply, and especially abstemiously. 
To be more specific, avoid as you would the small- 
pox, course dinners beginning with oysters and 
proceeding through a long series of gorges to a 
rich dessert, the w r hole being well floated in inter- 
current drinks of stimulants. 

Eat regularly, eat lightly, chew persistently and 
never form the habit of eating simply as a habit ; 
that is, do not eat simply because you have formed 



BRIGHVS DISEASE. 117 

the habit of eating. Consider what you are doing : 
think of the matter ; select a moderate amount of 
nutritious food and eat it very slowly, chewing 
pertinaciously. Cut out the worry as much as 
possible and take regular exercise. 

When you have got it, that is a different matter : 
death in an unpleasant form is impolite enough to 
stare you in the face and there will then be no 
difficulty to induce you to live in a rational 
manner. 

The rational indications for food in this disease 
are to give the kidneys as little work as possible 
and to avoid such substances as irritate them. It 
is nitrogenous waste that frets the kidneys, but 
they also have water and earthy and alkaline salts 
to eliminate. 

Acute Bright's Disease. — The dietetic treat- 
ment of acute nephritis, whether due to one of the 
exanthematous diseases or to cold and exposure, 
that is recommended in standard text-books, seems 
to be ill-advised. A standard work has the fol- 
lowing : "The diet should consist of milk or 
buttermilk, gruel made of arrowroot, or oatmeal, 
barley water, and, if necessary, beef tea and 
chicken broth. It is better, if possible, to confine 
the patient to a strictly milk diet." As the relative 
proportion of nitrogen to carbon is very different 
in milk and in oatmeal, and as arrowroot has no 
nitrogen at all in its composition, there can be no 
propriety in recommending either the one or the 
other as an alternative. The rules for diet in 
acute Bright's disease are extremely simple — let 
the patient go as nearly without any food or 
drink as possible. The kidneys need rest above 
all things ; they need rest more than the body 



n8 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

needs food. If owing to bodily weakness or from 
some other reason the doctor thinks some food 
necessary, then give a little arrowroot, but give 
as little as possible — just enough to effect your 
purpose. 

The stereotyped advice to give an exclusive milk 
diet in acute Bright's disease is wrong in prin- 
ciple and bad in its effect. The world is yet 
suffering from the idea coming down from past 
ages — if there is anything the matter with you 
take something for it. We are always taking 
something but never does it occur to people to 
give rest to overworked and damaged organs. 

As has been pointed out in another section, the 
products of the metabolism of nitrogen are a row 
of crystalline bodies, most of which are insoluble 
and some hard and gritty. The elimination of 
these nitrogenous bodies is a tax upon the kidneys, 
and especially undesirable in acute Bright's dis- 
ease, where there is the most imperative need for 
functional rest of those organs. The plain indi- 
cations are entire abstinence from both food and 
drink ; even water should be restricted to the low- 
est ebb for a time. 

When it becomes necessary that nourishment 
should be taken only a limited amount of food, 
easv of elimination, should be allowed. Milk, 
chocolate, buttermilk, oats, barley, beef tea, 
chicken broth should be strictly forbidden. Only 
non-nitrogenous or slightly nitrogenous food 
should be selected. Such are paps or gruels made 
without milk, of arrowroot, tapioca or cornstarch. 
Sugar and a little cream may be used to increase 
their palatability. 

Meat and heavy foods should not be resumed 



BRIGHVS DISEASE, 119 

until convalesence is over and the health thor- 
oughly established. During convalescence milk may 
be allowed with toast or milk and rice, tapioca, 
sago and a little fruit. 

Chronic Bright's Disease. — Under this^ cap- 
tion are here included all varieties of chronic in- 
flammation of the kidneys ; they are often indis- 
tinguishable from each other, and the same dietetic 
regulations apply very well to all the forms. 

The first rule is total abstinence from alcohol; 
this should be without exception. 

Spices such as pepper, both black and red, all- 
spice, nutmeg and flavors depending upon volatile 
oils, coffee and tea and diuretics, such as onions, 
asparagus or parsley, are not to be recommended. 

The loss of albumin in the urine is seldom 
found to be of amount sufficient to make any 
perceptible difference in the protein of the body, 
so that it is not necessary to increase that element 
of food in the dietary. 

It is of especial importance to avoid nucleins 
and the extractive matters of meat in chronic 
Bright's disease, such as occur in glandular or- 
gans, sweetbreads, liver, kidneys and the like, 
meat soups and extracts. 

The allowable articles are numerous; the main 
point is that the amount had better be restricted 
somewhat. They include bread, toast, cottage 
cheese, rice, honey, bacon, cheese, figs, dates, 
grapes, ordinary vegetables, rich milk and fruit. 
Such a list includes enough to satisfy a reason- 
able patient, and avoids those things which have 
probably brought the disease on. 

Breakfast : The following are offered simply as 
samples : Two rolls and a cup of cocoa, an orange 



120 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

and oatmeal porridge ; or the same with the addi- 
tion of an egg ; or one half pint of cream with 
two rolls and some raisins. 

Lunch : Bread and honey, rice with cream and 
sugar, bread and butter, potatoes and fruit for 
dessert. 

Supper : Crackers and cheese, or cottage cheese 
and caraway seeds, or bread and milk and figs, 
or toast, cocoa and cornstarch pudding. 

If the patient retires about 10, that is, as late 
as four hours after supper, a sandwich made of 
cottage cheese and caraway seed or cold tongue 
may be eaten before retiring. 

In regard to drinking, water is the best bever- 
age, but its use should be somewhat restricted, 
i. e., to about three pints a day for a man of ordi- 
nary weight. 

The above is simply to serve as a sample, and 
not intended as an arbitrary arrangement. The 
patient should not be allowed to lose weight and 
after a week's trial, the further diet and the amount 
eaten may be regulated by the result of the previous 
week. 

Dietetic Treatment of Gout. 

As soon as an individual feels some symptoms 
of the oncoming of gout let him read Benjamin 
Franklin's dialogue with that disease in Poor 
Richard's Almanac. Though penned by the sage 
one hundred and sixty years ago, its truth and 
practical wisdom make it as valuable to-day as 
when first written. It is a disease almost com- 
pletely under the control of dietetic regulations. 

Although there are still some obscurities about 
the pathology of gout, authorities are in practical 



DIETETIC TREATMENT OF GOUT. 121 

agreement upon the question of the close relation 
between it and uric acid. Now, uric acid is one of 
that series of crystalline products frequently men- 
tioned before in connection with the metabolism of 
protein, especially protein of animal origin. The 
nitrogenous bodies, nuclein, xanthin, hypoxanthin, 
and some others found in animal food, and the 
caffeine and thein in coffee and tea, when intro- 
duced into the body result in the production of 
uric acid. A very small, constant amount also is 
formed in the body by its own processes, quite 
uninfluenced by the quality of the food we con- 
sume. 

Uric acid is a hard, gritty, crystalline, extremely 
insoluble substance, taking 18,000 parts of pure 
water to dissolve one part. A weak alkaline solu- 
tion greatly increases its solubility. 

With these data it may be easily comprehended 
how a limited amount of this insoluble principle 
may be held in solution in the blood and other 
alkaline fluids and circulate through the system 
and be eliminated with difficulty in neutral or 
feebly acid urine. But if, owing to heavy feeding, 
more of it be introduced than the fluids can hold 
in solution, there may be a sudden precipitation of 
the offending substance into the least alkaline part 
of the body, i. e., where there is no rapid blood 
current, in the tissues around joints, usually the 
small joints farthest away from the heart, like 
the great toe. 

The sharp, hard crystals, bursting out of solu- 
tion into and through the tissues of the joint, cause 
exquisite pain, and thus you have an attack of 
gout. 

The amount of uric acid that the blood is 



122 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

capable of holding in solution varies from time to 
time., according to the degree of its alkalinity. 
Activity in fresh air and sunlight, by increasing 
the alkalinity of the fluids, may hold an amount 
in solution that would bring on a severe attack in 
the impure air of the fireside or in a damp, chilly, 
cloudy atmosphere. 

An amount that the system could easily hold 
in abeyance under ordinary circumstances might 
be immediately precipitated by free indulgence in 
wine, lemonade, beer or buttermilk. The tartaric 
acid in the wine, the citric acid in the lemon or 
the lactic acid in the beer and buttermilk (as the 
case may be) so reduces the blood alkalinity that 
the uric acid can no longer be retained, and the 
consequence is an attack of gout. 

Muscular action results in the local formation 
of an acid, nearly identical with the acid of sour 
milk, called sarcolactic acid (Note X). Severe 
exercise of a group of muscles causes local acidity ; 
this produces local precipitation of uric acid, with 
local stiffness and soreness of the overused mus- 
cles. Everyone has experienced such stiffness in 
parts of the body as the result of violent exercise. 
Aside from hereditary tendency, which also is 
a factor, gout is caused by : 

Overeating of uric acid-producing foods, or 
By an overplus of acid beverages, one or both, or 
By any circumstance that diminishes the power 
of the blood to hold the offending substance in 
solution. 

Acute gout is less common than formerly, but 
many forms of chronic, ill-defined ill-health hav- 
ing their roots in the same condition of the system 
as that just spoken of, are becoming more com- 



DIETETIC TREATMENT OF GOUT. 123 

mon. Instead of running rapidly into the tissues 
of a joint with exquisite pain, the noxious sub- 
stance slowly accumulates in the body in localities 
out of the rapidly moving blood currents, just as 
the floating debris of a river collects in the quieter 
corners out of the reach of the flowing tide ; per- 
haps it gradually forms gouty concretions around 
the joints of the fingers, or, as occasionally hap- 
pens, in the ear. In other cases it is gradually- 
deposited in the walls of arteries, making them 
stiff and inelastic, and laying the train for an 
apoplectic seizure. In still others it may eat into 
the heart walls, causing a granular degeneration 
of its muscular fiber, winding up the earthly ca- 
reer of the patient with some form of heart fail- 
ure. In still others it may disintegrate the tex- 
ture of the kidneys, so interfering with their 
function that life is closed by uremic poisoning. 

These insidious diseased conditions are to be 
avoided by the same dietetic rules as acute gout, 
and fortunately the indications are very clear. 
They are : 

1st. Reduce the total amount of food. 

2d. Abstain from eating glandular organs, such 
as kidneys, liver, sweetbreads, pancreas, mountain 
oysters, goose liver pies, spleen, etc. ; also meat ex- 
tracts and bouillons, meats and fish. 

3d. Live on milk, eggs, bread and vegetables, 
and after six months of it add as much fruit as 
you please. 

After six months to a year of such careful liv- 
ing the acids of fruit can do no harm. It is the 
combination of the above forbidden articles and 
acids that is so destructive. Fresh air and regular 
exercise greatly aid a wise diet. Persistence in the 



124 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

above will cure the worst cases of acquired gout 
or any disease based on uric acid, and will greatly 
ameliorate the hereditary forms. No drugs arc 
needed. 

Diet in Heart Disease. 

For valvular insufficiency, with drops}-, restriction 
of fluids and dry foods are beneficial. The fluid 
should be limited to 20 ounces a day and taken 
in quantities of a gill at a time. Two or three 
slices of dry toast and butter and a soft egg- w ith 
5 ounces of coffee and no water for breakfast. 

The midday meal may consist of meat, toast, 
butter and tapioca pudding. For supper, white- 
fish, potato, one cup of tea and a simple pudding. 

After a time a more liberal list must be al- 
lowed, especially as the appetite will demand it 
and the patient rebel against too much uniformity. 
The restriction serves not only to diminish the 
fluids of the body, but also revives a flagging 
appetite. After such a period of abstemiousness 
the patient is glad to get the plainest food. There 
is an idea here that physicians seldom think of 
employing which is extremely beneficial in many 
cases. Starvation, or at least extremely frugal 
living, even to the point of great weakness, is the 
only possible dietary that can benefit aneurism. 
Valsalva's diet for aneurism was a little bread 
and water, not over one-half pound per day. 
Tufnell's diet, being more liberal, can be main- 
tained for a longer period. It consisted of 3 
ounces of meat, 4 ounces of milk, 4 ounces of 
bread and butter and 3 ounces of claret daily. The 
principle is to increase the coagulability of the 



DIET IN OBESITY. 125 

blood and thus effect spontaneous cure. Gelatin 
foods are also beneficial. (Note XL) 

In stout people with fat around the heart, but 
with no degeneration of the heart muscle, a lean 
meat and tea diet with not more than six slices 
of buttered toast in 24 hours, is very beneficial. It 
should be combined with vigorous exercise in the 
open air, such as hill climbing. 

Fatty degeneration of the heart requires, on the 
contrary, rest, freedom from excitement and an 
easily digestible diet, rich in phosphatic salts. 
Spinach, potatoes, asparagus, macaroni, eggs, es- 
pecially the yolk, whitefish, chicken, bananas, milk 
with dialyzed iron as recommended under anemia, 
toast, stale bread and desserts of gelatine and 
junket form a list of sufficient variety. In all 
forms of weak heart no food should be taken 
between meals, the principal meal should be in the 
middle of the day and there should be a steady 
guard maintained against overdilution of the 
system with fluids. (Note NIL) 

Diet in Obesity. 

The obese condition may be due to an hereditary 
tendency, but is far oftener traceable to lack of 
exercise and overeating The physician will find 
many people the victims of self-deception, in that 
they declare themselves to be small eaters, when 
a slight investigation will reveal that such is not 
the case. A variety of treatments has been advo- 
cated to reduce weight, ranging from the taking 
of drugs, such as fucus vesiculosa, phytolacca 
juice and diluted potassium hydrate, to the wear- 
ing- of mystic girdles and light eating. 



126 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

Any fat person who is in good health may 
bring about a wonderful decrease in fat and body- 
weight in a few weeks bv confining the food to 
lean broiled meat and weak, hot tea sweetened 
with saccharin. The load of monotony may be 
lightened occasionally by a couple of eggs and by 
two thin slices of buttered bread or toast at a 
meal. 

The reduction is in proportion to the strictness 
with which the individual observes the diet, and 
the regimen loses its effectiveness rapidly if 
starchy or sweet food is introduced to any extent. 
Plenty of exercise in the open air greatly aids and 
obviates some of the ill effects that so much 
nitrogenous food may entail. Individuals who are 
anemic as well as fat do not stand this regimen 
very well. It irritates the system, making them 
unhappy and restless. 

Such a course of living is very effective in 
reducing weight, but it has the disadvantage of 
introducing the difficult products of nitrogenous 
metabolism into the system in great abundance 
and opens the door to rheumatic and gouty af- 
fections. 

A more rational method, and a safer one, is to 
fast for two or three days and then, when an 
appetite has developed that contemplates the plain- 
est food with lively pleasure, begin a course of 
slow methodical chewing of the usual diet, re- 
stricting the amount to about one-half the usual 
quantity. 

Food that fills the stomach without greatly in- 
creasing the Calories are tomatoes, spinach, sauer- 
kraut, radishes, celery, cucumbers and asparagus. 
Meat, bread, butter, tea and coffee may also be 



DIET FOR THE LEAN. 127 

used, all in moderation. Reason must rule over 
appetite. Water should be restricted in every 
form of fat-reducing diet except the meat and 
hot tea regimen. In that case water is necessary 
to defecate the tissues. 

Diet for the Lean. 

If a thin individual enjoys good health he had 
better be content and not interfere with the dis- 
pensations of nature. If leanness exists in spite 
of a good appetite the condition probably calls for 
careful attention. Wasting away or persistent 
leanness in spite of a liberal diet, is generally 
promptly cured by sweetbreads, eaten once a day, 
the other food remaining as usual. This peculiar 
action is probably due to the almost medicinal 
action of the minute amount of iodine which 
sweetbreads contain. The simple plan of eating 
candy, in addition to the ordinary meals, has 
proved very fattening in a number of cases. In 
one case popped rice, eaten at odd times during 
the day, proved so fat-producing that the patient 
was scarcely recognized by her friends in the 
course of a few months. The point is to add some 
palatable form of starch and sugar over and 
above the usual diet. 

Diet in Typhoid Fever. 

The various and opposite principles that have 
ruled at different periods, in regard to the feeding 
of typhoid fever patients, is a fine example of the 
pendulum-like oscillation of medical opinion. There 
was a time when fever patients were denied both 
food and drink to an extreme and arbitrary degree. 



128 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

There was a time when they were overfed, espe- 
cially with the mischievous beef-tea and beef-extract 
preparations. Then came the time of light diet, 
again followed by that celebrated Dr. Graves who 
desired for an epitaph "I fed fevers." He prob- 
ably overdid it, for most standard works of the 
present time are in favor of a light diet. 

Anders advises a liquid diet, chiefly plain milk 
diluted with water ; the daily quantity to be not 
less than three pints. If this is not well borne a 
little brandy, coffee or tea is to be added. These 
failing or disagreeing, whey, sour milk or butter- 
milk are to be tried. When milk cannot be 
digested it may be replaced by meat broths, to- 
gether with one of the standard infant foods, or 
by albumen-water suitably flavored. 

Osier recommends milk, three pints at least in 
24 hours, always diluted ; if curds appear in the 
stool he advises the substitution of mutton, chicken 
or beef broths for all or part of the milk. He also 
savs thin barlev-sruel, strained, is an excellent food 
for typhoid-fever patients. Albumen-water flavored 
with lemon and fortified with whisky or brandy is 
also recommended by Osier. Such, or practically 
such, are the dietetic directions in most other 
standard works. 

Medical opinion, however, never remains sta- 
tionary ; it swings like a pendulum ; and Bushuyez 
has advocated a more liberal dietary. His typhoid 
patients begin the day with a roll and tea on wak- 
ing ; 8 a. m., 14 ounces of gruel with butter ; 9 a. m., 
one or two boiled eggs ; 10 a. m., a glass of milk, 
a roll, half a cutlet and a piece of boiled meat; 12 
m., a bowl of soup and a little jelly; 3 p. m., tea 



DIET IN TYPHOID FEVER. 129 

and a roll ; 6 p. m., a cup of soup, a bit of chicken 
and milk pudding ; 8 p. m., a roll and milk. 

During the night, coffee or tea with milk is 
allowed several times. These ideas are gradually 
spreading and articles are occasionally appearing 
in the medical journals advocating the new liberal 
diet in typhoid. As soon as the plan is well es- 
tablished, the pendulum will swing to the other 
side, a reaction will occur and a period of light 
diet will follow. 

Consider the following facts : Typhoid fever 
is characterized by great torpidity of the involun- 
tary functions. Digestion and absorption are 
sluggish, the digestive juices are less active, the 
amount of hydrochloric acid in the stomach is 
diminished, the bile is less active and peristalsis is 
lessened. The intestines are ulcerated, and all 
food must pass through this inflamed, ulcerated, 
torpid tube, and in every membrane in the body 
osmosis is lessened. Put these facts alongside of 
that other important fact that it has been abun- 
dantly proved that entire abstinence from food 
may be endured with safety for forty days or 
more. 

The deduction is plain ; here is a condition of 
the system that needs rest from the functions of 
digestion and absorption, for it is only able to 
digest slowly and with difficulty and to absorb 
sluggishly. It has been proved that forty or more 
days' abstinence from food can be gone through 
with entire safety. It follows plainly that the 
typhoid-fever patient is better off without any food 
at all. The plan of feeding such a patient is sim- 
ply part of the old, enrooted superstition, that 
when anything is wrong with the health, "take 



130 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

something." It is always "take something" in- 
stead of giving the disordered organ rest. 

The proper diet for the average typhoid-fever 
patient is water ; water pure and fresh, cool or 
hot as desired, but only water. This is not the- 
ory alone ; experience proves that patients so fed 
recover in a shorter time, they have fewer com- 
plications, with no sequelae and no relapses. They 
do better than on any other diet that has ever 
been devised ; its robs the disease of half its ter- 
rors and of more than half its dangers. 

The advantages of this plan are, a short run of 
fever, few complications, slight sequelae, infre- 
quent relapses, rapid convalescence and speedy 
return of full vigor. This is the general rule for 
cases occurring in the well-fed or overfed people 
of the present day. 

The exceptions are rare ; they occur when an 
emaciated individual, already in a weak, half- 
starved condition, comes down w T ith an attack 
of typhoid. Such cases are sure to show great 
exhaustion and signs of cardiac weakness, early 
in the course of the disease. We must here choose 
the less of two evils ; the patient has no surplus of 
tissue on which to depend during the fever and 
we must therefore take the risk of putting food in 
his enfeebled system. 

There is no natural appetite to serve as a guide 
and the physician must be directed by his observa- 
tion of the digestive powers of his patient. The 
stools should be watched for undigested food 
and the effect of eating upon the temperature 
should be noticed. 

The general rule should be protein-sparers dur- 
ing the fever, and tissue-builders after the fever 



DIET FOR CONSUMPTION. 131 

and during convalescence. The first class, to be 
used during the fever, includes gelatinoids and 
carbohydrates, such as acidulous gelatine prepara- 
tions, and any starchy or saccharine preparations 
that agree with the patient. Rice water, thin tap- 
ioca or sago gruels, wine jelly, or lemon jelly, 
are examples of suitable foods for this period. 

' The second class includes such foods as eggs, 
milk and meat, strong protein foods for repairing 
the tissues after the fever is over. While the 
patient is still weak, albumen-water, or milk and 
lime water, are strong enough, but should be re- 
placed by stronger preparations as the digestive 
powers become more capable of performing their 
functions. 

Diet for Consumptives. 

This formidable disease is so prevalent and so 
fatal that we should make no mistake in giving 
advice about its management, for every mistake is 
liable to work harm to thousands. Between 7,000 
and 8,000 people died of consumption in 1904 in 
the state of Illinois alone. In situation, soil, cli- 
mate and family comforts, Illinois is equal, or 
superior to, any state in the Union, so that this 
enormous death rate probably applies to the 
United States as a whole. 

Consumption is a wasting disease, the fat of 
the body is first consumed, then the protein; the 
problem that confronts the dietetist is to keep in 
nutritional equilibrium a body that, in addition to 
the ordinary wear and tear of life, is being burned 
up by disease. The disease is well named ''con- 
sumption." It is an obvious inference that an 
extra amount of food is needed and forced feeding 



132 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

is now generally advised. This is a mistake. Food 
forced on the patient without appetite, or even 
with a disgust for it, is worse than wasted ; it is 
a drag on the vitality. The exercise in the open 
air, very generally advised for all cases, is also 
a fatal mistake for those with fever. Exercise 
in the open air is excellent as a general proposi- 
tion, but not for the consumptive. The same may 
be said of deep inspirations. Both of these should 
be recommended — highly recommended — as a 
means of preventing consumption in those who 
may be hereditarily inclined to it, but the disease 
once established, all this doctrine needs to be 
changed. Rest in the open air is what is needed, 
rest for the body and rest for the mind, freedom 
from physical labor, freedom from mental worry, 
and the whole existence in the open air, with as 
much of wisely selected food as the appetite de- 
mands, but not more. 

When the fever abates, exercise should be grad- 
ually and guardedly substituted for the quietude 
of the acute stage. Smoke, vapors, dust, exercise, 
excitement and crowds should all be avoided. It 
is very rare that one sees a fat consumptive ; it is 
therefore the fat of the body that is first used up 
as food for the disease ; but very soon the protein 
of the body undergoes waste. With the idea of 
opposing the prevailing phthisical leanness, fatty 
food has been highly recommended. It has prob- 
ably been carried to an extreme. When protein is 
undergoing rapid destruction, no amount of fat 
can replace a single molecule of it. The same is 
true of gelatine, although it has not been so ex- 
tensively tried. Gelatine is a more powerful pro- 



DIET FOR CONSUMPTION. 133 

tein-sparer than fat, and more attention should 
be paid to supplying it in consumptive cases. 

In a case of consumption, in a fair condition 
of strength, the attempt to spare the patient's 
protein by gelatine and fat should be made. Gela- 
tine preparations and bacon, butter and olive oil 
should be eaten to the full extent of the appetite 
at regular meals. Other foods are not interdicted, 
of course, but these should occupy first place. If 
this diet, with rest in the open air, prevents loss 
of body weight and lessens the fever, well and 
good ; nothing more is necessary except the cautious 
and gradual substitution of exercise for the rest 
previously enforced. 

If, however, loss of weight keeps on, with daily 
fever, this class of food should be put aside and 
the chief place given to tissue-builders, i. e., meat, 
milk and eggs. The particular articles of food 
may be varied to suit the appetite of the patient, 
but the general principle should rule of having 
protein in some form occupy the chief place. This 
method is many times better than the indiscriminate 
forcing of fat food on the patient with the result 
of producing a chronic distaste for all food. 

Doctor Russell of New York, whose experience 
with consumptives is very large, recommends 
forced feeding with fat, and the use of the un- 
cooked juice of fresh, succulent vegetables. If his 
results are carefully studied and the effects of ener- 
getic, methodical care upon such cases are dis- 
counted, this plan will not be found better than 
many others. It has been applied energetically and 
methodically to a large number of cases, hence the 
good results. It is certain that neither the vege- 



134 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

table juices nor the suet emulsion are a cure for 
consumption, and too much emphasis should not 
be placed upon them. The good results are due 
to care in place of neglect, attention in place of 
indifference, cleanliness in place of filth, and out- 
door air in place of the poisoned air of stuffy and 
infected rooms. These things should first be at- 
tended to, then a fatty and gelatinous diet to the 
full extent of the patient's appetite, but not more. 
If the subcutaneous fat of the patient has all 
been used up, then increase protein in the food 
rather than fat. Very few consumptives need 
die of consumption if the above details are strictly 
carried out. 

Spices and Condiments. 

In general these articles are devoid of nutritive 
value : thev increase the palatability of food and 
often by their delicate and appetizing flavor cause 
people to eat more than is good for them. They 
stimulate the flow of saliva and of the gastric juice 
by virtue of their heating and carminative proper- 
ties, and produce a subsequent languor in the diges- 
tive organs. Bv accustoming the palate to high 
flavors they dull it and make it insensible to the 
hundred and one delicate natural flavors of unsea- 
soned food. 

The black and white pepper produce a stimulat- 
ing and congestive effect upon the urethra ; in sensi- 
tive individuals this effect may be very annoying. 

Cayenne or red pepper when much used or in 
sensitive temperaments, produces considerable re- 
laxation, especially of the rectal tissues. 

Nutmeg has a powerful medicinal action ; it 



BAKING POWDERS. 135 

frequently causes dryness of the mouth and a stupid, 
sleepy condition. 

Condiments should have a very slight place in 
the kitchen and no place at all with those who 
desire to cultivate a delicate perception of the 
delicious natural flavors of plain food. 

Baking Powders. 

The large financial interest involved in the bak- 
ing powder business is responsible for the indus- 
trious dissemination of much misinformation upon 
the subject. 

The testimony of experts and chemists was 
abundantly used, and it cannot be said that the 
clear-eyed goddess Truth had much to do with 
the matter. The safest course for the public would 
be to reject all proprietary baking powders; the 
housewife or cook should learn how to make bak- 
ing powder ; it should be made in every kitchen. 

Many of the much advertised powders contain 
some form of alum salt. Many contain some salt 
of phosphoric acid, none of which should be used. 

The levigation of dough by means of baking 
powders is the least sanitary method of any that is 
used. It has, however, the advantage of saving time 
and trouble, and also of requiring little skill in the 
cook. In its best form, baking powder cannot be 
said to be very insanitary. No baking powders on 
the market, so far as they have been examined by 
me, were found free from objectionable features, 
except one sample made by a very small manufac- 
turer who did all his own retailing. In this case 
purity was probably owing to the manufac- 
turer's ignorance of how to adulterate. The safest 



136 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

rule is to reject all commercial varieties and make 
your own product, by the following formula: 

Cream of tartar (guaranteed 99 per cent) . 1 pound 

Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) l / 2 - pound 

Cornstarch j£. pound 

Mix thoroughly by sifting several times through 
a moderately fine sieve, and keep in a well-corked 
bottle. 

Cream of tartar is frequently adulterated with 
a considerable per cent of calcium tartrate, but the 
"guaranteed 99 per cent" can easily be obtained and 
should be insisted on. 



NOTES. 

I. The lack of uniformity in the nomenclature of the 
principles of food has resulted in some degree of con- 
fusion. In some works, the term proteids refers to what 
is here called albuminoids, and the term albuminoids 
to what is here called gelatinoids. The names and classi- 
fication given in the text are the ones recommended at 
a recent meeting of the American Association of Agri- 
cultural Colleges and Experiment Stations. In the 
interests of uniformity ft should be generally adopted by 
all writers upon the subject. 

II. There probably exist numerous particulars in the 
role performed by various foods, which is not adequately 
indicated by any of its threefold functions, and with 
which we are very slightly acquainted. No modern 
writers, so far as we know, allow for any other function 
than the supply of the necessary elements for the mainte- 
nance of tissue-integrity and the production of heat 
and energy. Hutchinson says: "It is a matter of indif- 
ference, as far as the cells of the body are concerned, 
whether we feed a man on egg-white, gelatin, butter or 
sugar, always supposing that these are supplied in the 
proportion of their dynamic equivalents." In opposition 
to this doctrine is the fact that during pregnancy and 
in states of ill-health there often exists a strong craving 
for some particular article of food, which no other article, 
not even the exact dynamic equivalent of the one craved, 
will satisfy. The benefit frequently experienced from the 
gratification of such cravings seems to argue an organic 
need of that article rather than a mere appetite or fancy. 

Then, again, what is commonly classed under the head 
of idiosyncrasy is really a peculiar effect or function 
of food, over and above the three general ones. Fresh 
milk, for instance, produces diarrhoea in certain indi- 

137 



138 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

viduals ; eggs cause headache, gastric catarrh and sul- 
phureous eructations with some people; cornmeal, an 
excellent food for most people, is productive of head- 
ache and fever in others. Veal frequently causes diar- 
rhoea ; shell fish are responsible for many cases of 
urticaria. A fine itching rash is a not infrequent result 
of the buckwheat se?.son, when buckwheat cakes are 
found on almost every breakfast table. There is nothing 
intrinsically improbable about the long continued use of 
certain foods producing certain results in the human 
body. There is nothing to be gained by a blunt denial, 
without investigation ; what is needed is experiment and 
observation upon the subject. 

III. Before the recent experiments of Atwater, with 
improved apparatus, the figures were : 

Protein 4- 1 Calories 

Carbohydrates 4- 1 

Fat 9-3 

IV. Fine white bread receives very unjust treatment 
at the hands of some of the would-be reformers in the 
popular health magazines and daily papers ; it has been 
pronounced a poison and deleterious to health by a popu- 
lar writer, who counts her readers by the hundred thou- 
sand; one health journal, with a very large circulation, 
calls it absolutely innutritious and "devoid of nutritive 
value." 

It is unfortunate that writers who have the ability 
to command the attention of such a large number of 
readers should take so little trouble to ascertain the 
facts of the matter. They write rather from prejudice 
than from truth. 

It has been proved to a superfluity that white bread 
made from patent flour yields more nourishment than the 
coarser breads, such as Graham. Here are the facts in 
a summary : 

Of Graham, entire-wheat and patent flours, all milled 
from the same lot of hard spring wheat, the patent flour 
yielded a larger percentage of available protein and avail- 
able energy than either of the other two. By chemical 
analysis the Graham flour contained the highest per cent 
and the patent flour the lowest of protein; the lower 
digestibility of the coarser flour bread is due to the fact 



NOTES. 139 

that a considerable portion of its protein is in the 
bran, and so resists the action of the digestive juices 
and escapes digestion. 

The reputation of the coarser breads is based upon 
chemical analyses, uncorrected by experiments with actual 
digestion 

The fine white bread is a better food for muscular 
labor, for it gives up more energy weight for weight. 
The coarser flour breads, however, have certain advan- 
tages ; they are better for sedentary livers, for constipated 
individuals and for children. 

V. The great value of the potato in scurvy is strikingly 
illustrated in Dana's account of a voyage from California 
to Boston in his "Two Years Before the Mast." One 
of the crew afflicted with scurvy was nearly in extremis; 
the teeth were completely concealed in the swollen and 
bleeding gums. Raw potato, scraped, and the pulp placed 
on his tongue, effected a speedy cure. 

VI. The sulphur in mustard and horseradish is plainly 
shown by the blackening effect they have upon silver 
spoons. 

VII. Warren Hastings always attributed the smallness 
of his stature and his slender figure to the hard and 
scanty fare of the school at Newington, near London, 
which he attended at the growing age of eight. 

VIII. Normal salt solution, in a surgical and thera- 
peutic sense, should be carefully distinguished from nor- 
mal salt solution in a chemical sense. When normal salt 
solution is spoken of in the first sense, a .6 per cent 
solution is referred to ; it is approximately a slightly 
heaping teaspoonful to a quart of lukewarm water (86 
grains to a quart). In a chemical sense the same name 
applies to 58.8 grams to the liter, a solution nine times 
as strong as the other. 

IX. Unfortunately there is no reliable test for acetone 
in the urine that does not involve distillation, a process 
that not many practitioners have the conveniences for 
performing. The following test does not certainly 
show acetone to be present, but it is significant enough 
to indicate that the carbohydrates had better be increased. 

Add 12 drops of liquor ferri chloridi to one-half fluid- 



140 CHEMISTRY OF FOODS. 

ounce of the urine. Filter through paper to remove the 
precipitated phosphates, and to the clear filtrate add 12 
more drops ; a claret red shows the probable presence 
of acetone and indicates a greater liberality in carbo- 
hydrates. The non-appearance of the claret color shows 
absence of acetone. 

X. Acting upon the theory that the muscular stiffness 
of violent exercise is due to a local acidity of the mus- 
cles, with precipitation of colloid uric acid or its con- 
geners, I have prescribed 30 to 50 grains of sodium 
bicarbonate, in a well diluted solution, shortly after severe 
exertion, such as a foot race or a prize fight, with marked 
success. The increase in the alkalinity of the fluids of 
the body redissolves the precipitated substance and car- 
ries it off into the general circulation, to be subsequently 
eliminated. 

XI. The uses of hunger in the treatment of disease have 
not been sufficiently studied. In this age of abundance, 
many people never get hungry ; they keep themselves in 
a chronic state of repletion and invalidism, with no ap- 
petency for food and no vigor of body. We advise any- 
one troubled with a chronic lack of appetite to simply 
drop the accustomed meals and fast until appetite comes. 
Outdoor exercise at the same time will greatly accelerate 
the successful result. 

XII. The disagreeable and distressing effects of po- 
tassium iodide are greatly lessened by copious dilution 
with water. Hence, during a course of this drug, it is 
usually advisable to have the patient drink copiously of 
water. 

If, from any reason, water cannot be allowed, as in 
aneurism, a correspondingly small dose of the iodide 
must be used, and will then be found to have a nearly 
equal effect. 






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